One evening, when the faraway hills and fields were scarfed in gauzy purples and the intervales were brimming with golden mists, Eric carried to the old garden a little limp volume that held a love story. It was the first of its kind he had ever read to her; it was a beautiful and passionate idyll, exquisitely told. He read it to her, lying in the grass at her feet; she listened with her beautiful hands clasped on her lap and her eyes on his face. It was not long and when he had finished he shut the book and looked up at her questioningly. “Do you like it?” he asked. Very slowly she took her slate and wrote. “Yes, I liked it. But it hurt me too. I did not know before that a person could like anything that hurt her. And I do not understand it very well. It is about love and I do not know anything about love. Mother told me once that love was a curse and that I must pray that it would never enter my life. She said it very earnestly and so I believed it. But that book teaches that it is a blessing. Which am I to believe?”
