Ailsa and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Craig, had been unusually

reticent over their embroidery that early afternoon, seated

together in the front room, which was now flooded with sunshine--an

attractive, intimate room, restful and pretty in spite of the

unlovely Victorian walnut furniture.

Through a sunny passageway they could look into Ailsa's

bedroom--formerly the children's nursery--where her maid sat sewing.

Outside the open windows, seen between breezy curtains, new buds

already clothed the great twisted ropes of pendant wistaria with a

silvery-green down.

The street was quiet under its leafless double row of trees, maple,

ailanthus, and catalpa; the old man who trudged his rounds

regularly every week was passing now with his muffled shout:

Any old hats

Old coats

Old boots!

Any old mats

Old suits,

Old flutes! Ca-ash!

And, leaning near to the sill, Ailsa saw him shuffling along,

green-baize bag bulging, a pyramid of stove-pipe hats crammed down

over his ears.

At intervals from somewhere in the neighbourhood sounded the

pleasant bell of the scissors grinder, and the not unmusical call

of "Glass put in!" But it was really very tranquil there in the

sunshine of Fort Greene Place, stiller even for the fluted call of

an oriole aloft in the silver maple in front of the stoop.

He was a shy bird even though there were no imported sparrows to

drive this lovely native from the trees of a sleepy city; and he

sat very still in the top branches, clad in his gorgeous livery of

orange and black, and scarcely stirred save to slant his head and

peer doubtfully at last year's cocoons, which clung to the bark

like shreds of frosted cotton.

Very far away, from somewhere in the harbour, a deep sound jarred

the silence. Ailsa raised her head, needle suspended, listened for

a moment, then resumed her embroidery with an unconscious sigh.

Her sister-in-law glanced sideways at her.

"I was thinking of Major Anderson, Celia," she said absently.

"So was I, dear. And of those who must answer for his gove'nment's

madness,--God fo'give them."

There was no more said about the Major or his government. After a

few moments Ailsa leaned back dreamily, her gaze wandering around

the sunny walls of the room. In Ailsa Paige's eyes there was

always a gentle caress for homely things. Just now they caressed

the pictures of "Night" and "Morning," hanging there in their round

gilt frames; the window boxes where hyacinths blossomed; the

English ivy festooned to frame the window beside her

sister-in-law's writing-desk; the melancholy engraving over the

fireplace--"The Motherless Bairn"--a commonplace picture which

harrowed her, but which nobody thought of discarding in a day when

even the commonplace was uncommon.




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