er been
in her life before--so busy that the quiet quadrangle seemed to hold no
room for news of the world without. She found that, if she were to
satisfy her conscience in the service of these old women, she could seldom
save more than an hour's leisure from the short spring days; and in that
hour maybe Sir George would call with his plans, or she would put on her
bonnet and walk down the hill for a call on the Bennys and a chat with
Nuncey. But oftener it was Nuncey who came for a gossip; Nuncey having
sold her cart and retired from business.

Spring had come. Within the almshouse quadrangle, around the leaden pump,
the daffodils were in flower and the tulip buds swelling. A blast from
the first of those golden trumpets could hardly have startled her more
than did her first sight of it flaunting in the sun. It had stolen upon
her like a thief.

"A letter for you, Mrs. Trevarthen!"

The postman, as he crossed the quadrangle to the Matron's door, glanced up
and spied Mrs. Trevarthen bending over a wash-tub in the widows' gallery.
He pulled a letter from his pocket and held it aloft gaily.

"I'll run up the steps with it if you can't reach."

"No need to trouble you, my dear, if you'll wait a moment."

Mrs. Trevarthen dried her hands in her coarse apron, leaned over the
balustrade, and just contrived to reach the letter with her finger-tips.
They were bleached with soap and warm water, and they trembled a little.

"'Tis from your son Tom, I reckon," said the postman, while she examined
the envelope. "Foreign paper and the Quebec postmark."

"From Tom? O' course 'tis from Tom! Get along with 'ee do! What other
man would be writing to me at my time o' life?"

The postman walked on, laughing. Mrs. Trevarthen stood for some while
irresolute, holding the envelope between finger and thumb, and glancing
from it to a closed door at the back of the gallery. A slant low sun-ray
almost reached to the threshold, and was cut short there by the shadow of
the gallery eaves.

"Best not disturb her, I s'pose," said the old woman, with a sigh.
She laid the letter down, but very reluctantly, beside the wash-tub, and
plunged both hands among the suds again. "Quebec!" The word recalled a
silly old song of the sailors; she had heard her boy hum it again and
again--

"Was you ever to Quebec,
Bonnie lassie, bonnie lassie?
Was you ever to Quebec,
Rousing timber over the deck."--

A door opened