Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/102

Rh he sent the carriage to the park gates, for he determined to walk through the grass and under the trees to meet it. He hoped in the stillness and solitude to find a peace that had somehow slipped away from him in a moment.

But this was just one of those days which the hyper-sensitive mind finds aggressive. Nature was so uncompromisingly green, the grass had such an intense color, the foliage of the beeches and elms and oaks was so lustrous and positive, the vistas of pasture-land so decidedly verdant, that their very certainty seemed to repress thought and induce sadness. He tried to lift himself into a higher atmosphere, into the blue of heaven, but all his efforts were failures; he had that chill presentiment, that stubborn bosom weight, that

"No philosophy can lift."

He looked anxiously at Ben Holden, who was standing at the mill door in his long checked pinafore, with his hands in his pockets, and a general air about him of a comfortable satisfaction with life. Ben said a cheerful good-morning, and Jonathan perceived that all was right among the frames and workers. Then he knew 7