Alva smiled sympathetically, and then she and Lassie almost rushed out into the open air. When they were well out of hearing, they dared to laugh.
"Oh, my gracious me," Lassie cried; "how can you stand it and stay sober?"
"I can't, that's the trouble!" Alva gasped. "My dear, she felt strange before you, and was rather reticent, but wait till she knows you well – until to-morrow. Oh, Lassie, she's too amusing! Wait till she gets started about the dam, or about Niagara, or about her views on running a post-office, or anything – " she was stopped by Lassie's seizing her arm.
"Look quick, over there, – who is that? He looks so out of place here, somehow. Don't he? Just like civilization."
Alva looked. "That? Oh, that's Ronald – Ronald Ingram, you know, coming across lots for his letters. You remember him, surely, when you were a little girl. He was always at our house then. You'll meet him again to-night. I'd stop now and introduce you, only I want to hurry."
"I suppose that he knows all about it?"
"All about what?"
"The secret."
"Ronald? Oh, no, dear. No one knows. No one – that is, except – except we two. You will be the only outsider to share that secret."
"For how long?"
"Until I am married."
"Until you are married! Why, when are you to be married? – Soon?"
"In a fortnight."
"And no one is to know!"
"No one."
"Not his family? Not yours?"
"No one."
"How strange!"
Alva put out her hand and stayed the words upon her friend's lips. "Look, dear, this is the Long Bridge. You've heard of it all your life; now we're going to walk across it. Look to the left; all that lovely scene of hill and valley and the little white town with green blinds is Ledgeville; and there to the right is the famous gorge, with its banks of gray and its chain of falls, each lovelier than the last. Stand still and just look; you'll never see anything better worth looking at if you travel the wide world over."
They stopped and leaned on the bridge-rail in silence for several minutes, and then Alva continued softly, almost reverently: "This scene is my existence's prayer. I can't make you understand all that it means to me, because you can't think how life comes when one is crossing the summit – the very highest peak. I've climbed for so long, – I'll be descending upon the other side for so long, – but the hours upon the summit are now, and are wonderful! I should like to be so intensely conscious that not one second of the joy could ever fade out of my memory again. I feel that I want to grave every rock and ripple and branch and bit of color into me forever. Oh, what I'd give if I might only do so. I'd have it all to comfort me afterwards then – afterwards in the long, lonely years to come."
"Why, Alva," said her friend, turning towards her in astonishment, "you speak as if you didn't expect to be happy but for a little while."
A sad, faint smile crept around Alva's mouth, and then it altered instantly into its usual sweet serenity.
"Come, dear," she said; "we'll hurry on to the house, and then after you've seen it we'll go to my own dear forest-seat, and there I'll tell you the whole story."
"Oh, let us hurry!" Lassie said, impetuously; "I can't wait much longer."
So they set quickly forward across the Long Bridge.
CHAPTER IV
THE DIFFERENCE
On the further side of the Long Bridge the railway tracks swept off in a smooth curve to the right, and, as there was a high embankment to adapt the grade to the hillside, a long flight of steps ran down beside it into the glen below.
A pretty glen, dark with shadows, bright with dancing sun-rays. A glen which bore an odd likeness to some lives that we may meet (if we have that happiness), lives that lead their ways in peace and beauty, with the roar and smoke of the world but a stone's throw distant.
Lassie's eyes, looking down, were full of appreciation.
"Is it there that you are going to live?" she asked.
Alva shook her head. "Oh, no, not there; that is Ledge Park, the place that all the hue and cry is being raised over just now."
"Oh, yes," Lassie turned eagerly; "tell me about that. I read something in the papers, but I forgot that it was here."
"It is 'here,' as you say. But it concerns all the country about here, only it's much too big a subject for us to go into now. There are two sides, and then ever so many sides more. I try to see them all, I try to see every one's side of everything as far as I can, but there is one side that overbalances all else in my eyes, and that happens to be the unpopular one."
"That's too bad."
"Yes, dear," Alva spoke very simply; "but what makes you say so?"
"Why? Why, because then you won't get what you want."
Her friend laughed. "Don't say that in such a pitying tone, Lassie. Better to be defeated on the right side, than to win the most glorious of victories for the wrong. Who said that?"
Lassie looked doubtful.
Alva laughed again and touched her cheek with a finger-caress. "I'll tell you just this much now, dear; – all of both the river banks – above, below and surrounding the three falls – belong to Mr. Ledge, and he has always planned to give the whole to the State as a gift, so that there might be one bit of what this country once was like, preserved. He made all his arrangements to that end, and gave the first deeds last winter. What do you think followed? As soon as the State saw herself practically in possession, it appointed a commission to examine into the possibilities of the water power!" Alva paused and looked at her friend.
"But – " Lassie was clearly puzzled.
"The engineers are here surveying now. Ronald Ingram is at the head and the people of all the neighborhood are so excited over the prospect of selling their farms that no one stops to think what it would really mean."
"What would it really mean?"
"A manufacturing district with a huge reservoir above it."
"Where?"
"Back there," she turned and pointed; "they say that there was a great prehistoric lake there once, and they will utilize it again."
"But there's a town down there."
"Yes, my dear, Ledgeville. Ledgeville and six other towns will be submerged."
Lassie stopped short on the railroad track and stared. She had come to a calamity which she could realize now.
"Why, what ever will the people do then?"
"Get damages. They're so pleased over being drowned out. You must talk it over with Mrs. Ray. You must get Mrs. Ray's standpoint, and then get Ronald's standpoint. Theirs are the sensible, practical views, the world's views. My views are never practical. I'm not practical. I'm only heartbroken to think of anything coming in to ruin the valley. Mr. Ledge and I share the same opinions as to this valley; it seems to us too great a good to sell for cash."
"You speak bitterly."
"Yes, dear, I'm afraid that I do speak bitterly. On that subject. But we won't talk of it any more just now. See, here's the wood road that leads to my kingdom; come, take it with