Mary Taylor was perplexed and in some indefinite way amazed; and many of the other teachers saw no beauty, only a strangeness that brought a smile. They were such as know beauty by convention only, and find it lip-ringed, hoop-skirted, tattooed, or corsetted, as time and place decree.
The change in Zora, however, had been neither cataclysmic nor revolutionary and it was yet far‚ÅÝ‚Äîvery far‚ÅÝ‚Äîfrom complete. She still ran and romped in the woods, and dreamed her dreams; she still was passionately independent and ‚Äúqueer.‚Äù
Tendencies merely had become manifest, some dominant. She would, unhindered, develop to a brilliant, sumptuous womanhood; proud, conquering, full-blooded, and deep bosomed‚ÅÝ‚Äîa passionate mother of men.
Herein lay all her early wildness and strangeness. Herein lay, as yet half hidden, dimly sensed and all unspoken, the power of a mighty all-compelling love for one human soul, and, through it, for all the souls of men.
All this lay growing and developing; but as yet she was still a girl, with a new shyness and comeliness and a bold, searching heart.
In the field of the Silver Fleece all her possibilities were beginning to find expression. These newborn green things hidden far down in the swamp, begotten in want and mystery, were to her a living wonderful fairy tale come true. All the latent mother in her brooded over them; all her brilliant fancy wove itself about them. They were her dream-children, and she tended them jealously; they were her Hope, and she worshipped them. When the rabbits tried the tender