Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III 'The Man of Her Choice" It was Sunday evening. The little party from the Haven, Alexander Fraser, his guest, and a few pupils, were seated on the wide steps of the south front of Priest's Park. The day had been hot and airless, but with sunset a little freshness had drifted across the earth. The long beds below the steps were full of white lilies and the scent of them hung on the air. Westward over the tree-tops the faint afterglow of a solemn sunset clung to the sky, and far below them the grey city set out her innumerable stars in faint reproach to a starless sky, where later the moon would take command. Now at this hour between dusk and dark a mantle of opalescent tints was wrapped round the earth and invited peace. Down in the woods a nightingale sang fitfully, as not yet sure of an audience. The little group talked by fits and starts, mostly of trivial things, for young men (and they predominated) are not prone to give away their appreciation of nature's moods. Alexander Fraser himself leant back in his chair, thinking of far-off days beyond the reach of memory, and it was Felicity who put his unspoken thoughts into words. "I love to think," she said slowly, "how long ago, when there was no city here, down there, nor any workof man visible, the evenings came on just like this and the earth waited for the moonrise as we wait, and it was all just as lovely and perfect as now, though no man saw it. It gives a sort of surety to it going on even when men are not here." "Going on still richer in beauty," put in her brother; "for isn't all this before us the richer for the thoughts that it has inspired in men? At least we are richer who have learnt to see not only with our eyes but theirs, too!" Veronica, who was leaning against his chair, thinking of not...