that she felt the Blessed Mary (as she called her)
had given those days to my poor mistress to make up to her for all
she'd lost and all she'd never had, and that she'd confessed her part
in it and been cleared, long ago. I never loved any time better,
looking back, nor Hodges either. One season the Christmas greens would
be up, and then before we knew it the ice would be out of the brooks
and there would be crocuses and daffodils for Mr. Childress's grave.

She and I took all the care of it and the key to the iron gate of it
lay out on her low work table, and one or other of us always passing
through, but one afternoon in summer when I went with a basket of June
roses, she being not quite up to it that day, there on the flat stone I
saw with my own eyes a little crumpled bunch of daisies--all nipped off
short, such as children pick, and crushed and wilted in their hot
little hands! And on no other tomb but his. But I was used to such as
that, by then....

Margaret was handy with her needle, and I remember well the day she
made the linen garden hat with a knot of rose-colour under the brim.

"You don't think this will be too old, do you, ma'am?" she said when
she showed it to my mistress, and the dear lady was that pleased!

"Not a bit, Margaret," she said and I carried it off to Miss Winifred's
closet. Many's the time I missed it after that, and knew too much to
hunt. It was hunting that spoiled all, for we tried it....

And yet we didn't half believe. Heaven help us, we knew, but we didn't
believe: St. Thomas was nothing to us!

Margaret was with us three years when the new family came. Hodges told
us that Hudson River property was looking up and land was worth more
every year. Anyway, in one year two families built big houses within a
mile of us and we went to call, of course, as in duty bound. John
grumbled at getting out the good harness and having the carriage
re-lined, but my mistress knew what was right, and he had no choice. I
dressed her very carefully, and we watched her off from the door, a
thought too pale in her black, but sweet as a flower, and every inch
full of breeding, as Hodges said.

I never knew what took place at that visit, but she came back with a
bright red circle in each cheek and her head very high, and spent all
the evening in the nursery. Alone, of course, for I heard little quick
sounds on the piano in the drawing-room, and the fairy books were gone
from the children's