Athalie

"It is pretty when you get here," he said, "but it's like climbing

over a mile of garbage to get out of one's front door. No European

city would endure being isolated by such a desert of squalor and

abominable desolation."

But Athalie merely smiled. She had been far too excited to notice the

familiar ugliness and filth of the dirty city's soiled and ragged

outskirts.

And now the car sped on amid the flat, endless acres of cultivated

land, and already her dainty nose was sniffing familiar but

half-forgotten odours--the faintest hint of ocean, the sun-warmed

scent of freshly cut salt hay; perfumes from woodlands in heavy

foliage, and the more homely smell from barn-yard and compost-heap;

from the sunny, dusty village streets through which they rolled; from

village lanes heavy with honeysuckle.

"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every

breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real

to me.... I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I

can't remember."

"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away

for--"

He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the

magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the

false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had

altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for

a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the

sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's

splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the

gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair

and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly

inquiring fingers.

He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!"

But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already

behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and

looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it

glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered,

fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled

sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields,

his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon

flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into

sight behind its new hedge of privet.

Athalie caught sight of it,--of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone

through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a

circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze

with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long

neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient house in all its quaint and

charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread

fretwork,--saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big,

thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on

the glass of the sun parlour.