Nightfall was nature’s last resort in a bid to blot out her own splendor. For much of the afternoon across the upper Vermont countryside, ominous dark clouds had hung over the forested peaks, swarming, breaking, and regrouping in a macabre arabesque. Rather than stifling beauty, they enhanced it with a muted gray softness, sifted over the deep greens of the hillside. The power of the land was an awesome one, embodied in the proud posture of the pines on the hill, the free flow of the river winding through the valley, the gaiety of the orange Indian paintbrush swaying with meadow grass in the breeze. Darkness was only a thin veil over this primal beauty. Seeing through it, Anne Boulton felt blessed, and doubly grateful that she had left the city. The summer had been an oppressive one in New York. Heat and humidity had rivaled each other, stubbornly clinging to highs that beaded foreheads and furniture with sweat, and made everyone and everything sticky. As the sky scrapered congestion closed in on her, so had wellintending friends and family, coaxing her out to lunch, when she wanted a tall cola and a salad at home, dragging her to the theater, when she craved a quiet evening alone, spiriting her away for a weekend of busy companionship, when she fancied a good book and healing solitude.
