That is, he had never ceased saying so in words; but his heart had ceased resisting long ago.

Only that traitor which we call judgment had been keeping up a false show of resolute opinion, just to lure the beguiled heart farther and farther on in a mistaken security.
But love is like the plants.

It has its appointed days for flowers and for the falling of the flowers.

The vague, sweetness of the early hours and days together, the bright happiness of the first close intimacy and interchange,--these reach their destined moment, to pass on and make room for the harvest.

Blessed are the lives in which all these sweet early petals float off gently and in season for the perfect setting of the holy fruit! On this morning, when Parson Dorrance entered Mercy's room, it was already decorated as if for a festival.