Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/179

 stepped out into the night air, he found himself taking a round-about way home. It was prettier by way of High Street, he said to himself, but in his heart he knew that it was the presence of his old love in the ancient square house behind the elm trees, that lured his feet from the usual path.

It was a bleak November evening. The wind swayed the bare branches of the trees in front of the old Ives homestead. A fragile-looking moon, about a week old, was pitching and tossing among the clouds, and Anson vaguely wondered if it might not founder. There were lights in several of the windows, and he paused a moment, looking at them. He did not speculate as to Alice's whereabouts in the house. Rather, he had a feeling that all that soft, curtained light emanated from her presence. And as he stood there he recalled the day, the very hour, in which he had last thought of her as a possible possession of his own. He remembered the exact appearance of the horse he was driving that day, the creaking of the wheel of his chaise, causing him to wonder whether he was going to have a hot box; he remembered how green were the meadows between which he drove, and most clearly, most poignantly did he recall the rich scent of the apple-blossoms, the peculiar delicacy of their color, and the way a stray petal came floating down and rested on his knee. 'To-night there was no longer any pain in these recollections. He seemed to be losing hold of his old