As they walked onward, they vaguely felt the influence of the repose that was stealing upon the tired world; the intellectual and volitional elements of their natures becoming gradually quiescent, the emotions were given full sway.  They felt themselves drawn toward each other by some irresistible power, and, although they had never before been conscious of any incompleteness of their lives, they suddenly discovered affinities of whose existence they had never dreamed.  Their two personalities seemed to be absorbed into one new mysterious and indivisible being, and this identity gave them an incomprehensible joy.  Over them as they walked, Nature brooded, sphynx-like.  Their young and healthy natures were tuned in unison with the harmonies of the world like perfect instruments from which the delicate fingers of the great Musician evoked a melody of which she never tired, reserving her discords for a future day.  On this delicious evening she permitted them to be thrilled through and through with joy and hope and she accompanied the song their hearts were singing with her own multitudinous voices.  “Be happy,” chirped the birds; “be happy,” whispered the evening breeze; “be happy,” murmured the brook, running along by their side and looking up into their faces with laughter.  The whole world seemed to resound with the refrain, “Be happy!  Be happy! for you are young, are young, are young!”

Pepeeta first broke the silence.

“I had never heard of the things about which you talked,” she said.

“Thee never had?  How could that be?  I thought that every one knew them!”

“I must have lived in a different world from yours.”

“What sort of a world has thee lived in?”

“A world of fairs and circuses, of traveling everywhere and never stopping anywhere.”

“Has thee never been in a church?”

“Never until that night.”

“And thee knows nothing of God?”

“Nothing except the gypsy god, and he was not like yours.”

“And thee was happy?”

“I thought so until I heard what you said.  Since then I have been full of care and trouble.  I wish I knew what you meant!  But I have seen that wonderful light!”

“Thee has seen it?”

“Yes, to-day!  And I followed it; I shall always follow it.”

“When does thee leave the village?” David asked, fearing the conversation would lead where he did not want to go.

“To-morrow,” she said.

“Does thee think that the doctor would renew his offer to take me with him?”

“Do I think so?  Oh!  I am sure.”

“Then I will go.”

“You will go?  Oh!  I am so happy!  The doctor was very angry; he has not been himself since.  You don’t know how glad he will be.”

“But will not thee be happy, too?” he asked.

“Happier than you could dream,” she answered with all the frankness of a child.  “But what made you change your mind?”