a suit of clothes which never had been worn, and anon I heard him
calling his mother to help him find buttons and neckwear that had been
misplaced. And he shouted to me not to be impatient, that he was doing
the best he could. Impatient! I was sitting in the passage, leaning back
against the wall, and near the steps Guinea stood, looking far out over
the ravine. She had donned a garb of bright calico, with long,
green-stemmed flowers stamped upon it, and I thought that of all the
dresses I had ever beheld this was the most beautiful and becoming. She
hummed a tune and looking about pretended to be surprised to see me
sitting there, and for aught I know the astonishment might have been
real, for I had made no noise in placing my chair against the wall.

"I ought not to be humming a dance tune on Sunday," she said, stepping
back and standing against the opposite wall, with her hands behind her.

"I don't see how the day can make music harmful," I replied.

"The day can't make music harmful," she rejoined. "But I can't sing.
Sometimes when I can't express what I am thinking about I hum it. How
long are you and Alf going to be away?"

"As long as it suits him," I answered. "I have decided to have no voice
as to the length of our stay."

"Then you are simply going to accommodate him. How kind of you. And have
you always so much consideration for others? If you have you may find
your patience strained if you stay here."

"To stand any strain that may be placed upon our patience is a virtue,"
I remarked--sententious pedagogue--and she lifted her hands, clasped
them behind her head, looked at me and laughed, a music sweet and low.
Just then Alf came out upon the passage, looking down at himself, first
one side and then the other; and it was with a feeling of close kinship
to envy that I regarded his new clothes. He apologized for having kept
me waiting so long, but in truth I could have told him that I should
have liked to wait there for hours, looking at the graceful figure of
that girl, standing with her hands clasped behind her brown head.

The distance was not great and we had decided to walk, and across a
meadow, purpling with coming bloom, we took a nearer way. I said to Alf
that one might think that he was a stranger at the General's house, and
he replied: "In one way I am. I have been there many a time, it is true,
but always to help do something."

"Is the family so exclusive, then?" I asked.

"Oh, they are as