Now that it was too late, Sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about the
unseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. She looked
out curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that there
were more of them than in the height of the season), at the
straight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children
(there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the street
now that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging,
indifferent, powerfully built men. She wondered, for a moment, what
they were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore the
annual display of splendor they might never share. They looked, in
that last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would care
less than she would in their places. Perhaps they were only hostile,
not envious.
"I dare say," said Aunt Victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, very
muddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn for
the natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summer
people leave. They must feel desolate enough!"
Sylvia wondered.
The last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the upland
pass between Windward and Hemlock mountains. It brought up to her the
taste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, and
the rush of summer wind past her ears.
CHAPTER XXXIII
"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED .
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