, and we may get
some flowers from them----"

"I think, if you'll let me walk ahead and talk with the gardener,"
Cairns said, "we'll be allowed to go in--at least, for some flowers."

She laughed at the audacity of a stranger in Nantucket, but bade him
try.

"If you fail, it's my turn," she added.

Cairns seemed to have little trouble in negotiating with the gardener,
and presently beckoned.

"I've done very well for a stranger," he whispered. "We're to have the
flowers. More than that, we are to look through the house. The sisters
are away----"

"David----"

"But I told him who you were--about your friends and relatives in
Nan--here.... I assure you, he believes we have never set foot out of
New England."

There was a sweet seasoning in the house; decades of flowers and winds,
spare living, gentle voices and infallible cleanliness--that perfumed
texture which years of fineness alone can bring to a life or to a
house.

"See, the table is set for two!" Vina whispered, "as if the sisters
were to be back for dinner. Everything is just as they left it."

They moved about the front rooms, filled with trophies from the deep, a
Nantucketer's treasures--bits of pottery from China, weavings from the
Indies, lacquers from Japan--over all, spicy reminders of far
archipelagoes, and the clean fragrance of cedar.

On the mantel in the parlor stood a full-rigged ship, a whaling-ship,
with her trying-house and small-boats--a full ship, homeward bound....

The gardener had left them to their own ways.

"That's because he knows your _folks_," Cairns said softly. "Shall we
look upstairs?"

"Oh, do you think we'd better?"

"Don't you want to?"

"Yes----"

"It isn't a liberty--when we have the proper spirit."

"Isn't it, David?" ... With hushed voices and light steps, they passed
up and through the sunny rooms. Fresh flowers everywhere, and one
bright room with two small white beds.

"The maiden-aunts," Cairns said hoarsely.

At length, he held open for her to enter, the door of the great front
room, filled with Northern brightness from a skylight of modern
proportions.

"Why, David," she whispered raptly, "it's like a studio! It _is_ a
studio!"

And then she saw the scaffoldings, the ladders and panels which do not
belong to a painter.

She faced him....

The room was filled with adoration that enchanted the light. The
branches of the trees about the lower windows, softly harped the sound
of the sea ...