When I refused -- it was amazingly hard to refuse -- she sulked through three letters , then cheered up and began to enjoy herself . But it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote : `` I 've found out why you sent me here , Stephen -- and I 'm glad you did . '' I had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day Betty returned to Glenby . But the next afternoon I went over . I found Betty out and Sara in . The latter was beaming . Betty was so much improved , she declared delightedly . I would hardly know `` the dear child . '' This alarmed me terribly . What on earth had they done to Betty ? I found that she had gone up to the pineland for a walk , and thither I betook myself speedily . When I saw her coming down a long , golden-brown alley I stepped behind a tree to watch her -- I wished to see her , myself unseen . As she drew near I gazed at her with pride , and admiration and amazement -- and , under it all , a strange , dreadful , heart-sinking , which I could not understand and which I had never in all my life experienced before -- no , not even when Sara had refused me . Betty was a woman ! Not by virtue of the simple white dress that clung to her tall , slender figure , revealing lines of exquisite grace and litheness ; not by virtue of the glossy masses of dark brown hair heaped high on her head and held there in wonderful shining coils ; not by virtue of added softness of curve and daintiness of outline ; not because of all these , but because of the dream and wonder and seeking in her eyes . She was a woman , looking , all unconscious of her quest , for love . The understanding of the change in her came home to me with a shock that must have left me , I think , something white about the lips . I was glad . She was what I had wished her to become . But I wanted the child Betty back ; this womanly Betty seemed far away from me .
I stepped out into the path and she saw me , XXXXX a brightening of her whole face .
As about at for from of on out that with