Did Miss McDonald tell Evelyn of her meeting with Philip in Central Park?  The Scotch loyalty to her service would throw a doubt upon this.  At the same time, the Scotch affection, the Scotch sympathy with a true and romantic passion, and, above all, the Scotch shrewdness, could be trusted to do what was best under the circumstances.  That she gave the least hint of what she said to Mr. Burnett concerning Evelyn is not to be supposed for a moment.  Certainly she did not tell Mrs. Mavick.  Was she a person to run about with idle gossip?  But it is certain that Evelyn knew that Philip had given up his situation in the office, that he had become a reader for a publishing house, that he had definitely decided to take up a literary career.  And somehow it came into her mind that Philip knew that this decision would be pleasing to her.

According to the analogy of other things in nature, it would seem that love must have something to feed on to sustain it.  But it is remarkable upon how little it can exist, can even thrive and become strong, and develop a power of resistance to hostile influences.  Once it gets a lodgment in a woman’s heart, it is an exclusive force that transforms her into a heroine of courage and endurance.  No arguments, no reason, no considerations of family, of position, of worldly fortune, no prospect of immortal life, nothing but doubt of faith in the object can dislodge it.  The woman may yield to overwhelming circumstances, she may even by her own consent be false to herself, but the love lives, however hidden and smothered, so long as the vital force is capable of responding to a true emotion.  Perhaps nothing in human life is so pathetic as this survival in old age of a youthful, unsatisfied love.  It may cease to be a passion, it may cease to be a misery, it may have become only a placid sentiment, yet the heart must be quite cold before this sentiment can cease to stir it on occasion—­for the faded flower is still in the memory the bloom of young love.

They say that in the New Education for women love is not taken into account in the regular course; it is an elective study.  But the immortal principle of life does not care much for organization, and says, as of old, they reckon ill who leave me out.

In the early season at Newport there was little to distract the attention and much to calm the spirit.  Mrs. Mavick was busy in her preparation for the coming campaign, and Evelyn and her governess were left much alone, to drive along the softly lapping sea, to search among the dells of the rocky promontory for wild flowers, or to sit on the cliffs in front of the gardens of bloom and watch the idle play of the waves, that chased each other to the foaming beach and in good-nature tossed about the cat-boats and schooners and set the white sails shimmering and dipping in the changing lights.  And Evelyn, drinking in the beauty and the peace of it, no doubt, was more pensive than joyous.  Within the last few months life had opened to her with a suddenness that half frightened her.