It should be her room ; he would fit it up for her ; and her picture should hang there . He was all summer carrying out his plan . Nobody must know or suspect , so he must go slowly and secretly . One by one the furnishings were purchased and brought home under cover of darkness . He arranged them with his own hands . He bought the books he thought she would like best and wrote her name in them ; he got the little feminine knick-knacks of basket and thimble . Finally he saw in a store a pale blue tea-gown and the satin slippers . He had always fancied her as dressed in blue . He bought them and took them home to her room . Thereafter it was sacred to her ; he always knocked on its door before he entered ; he kept it sweet with fresh flowers ; he sat there in the purple summer evenings and talked aloud to her or read his favourite books to her . In his fancy she sat opposite to him in her rocker , clad in the trailing blue gown , with her head leaning on one slender hand , as white as a twilight star . But Carlisle people knew nothing of this -- would have thought him tinged with mild lunacy if they had known . To them , he was just the shy , simple farmer he appeared . They never knew or guessed at the real Jasper Dale . One spring Alice Reade came to teach music in Carlisle . Her pupils worshipped her , but the grown people thought she was rather too distant and reserved . They had been used to merry , jolly girls who joined eagerly in the social life of the place . Alice Reade held herself aloof from it -- not disdainfully , but as one to whom these things were of small importance . She was very fond of books and solitary rambles ; she was not at all shy but she was as sensitive as a flower ; and after a time Carlisle people were content to let her live her own life and no longer resented her unlikeness to themselves . She boarded with the Armstrongs , who lived beyond Golden Milestone around the hill of pines .
Until the snow disappeared she went out to the main road XXXXX the long Armstrong lane ; but when spring came she was wont to take a shorter way , down the pine hill , across the brook , past Jasper Dale 's garden , and out through his lane .
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