n the magnolia tree by the gate and the warmth of
the morning sun was filling the garden with a heart-snatching perfume of
jessamine.

Jessamine and the faint bitterness of sun warmed foliage.

It was a garden sure to be haunted by birds; not large and, though well
kept, not trim, and sing the birds as loud as they might, they never could
break the charm of silence cast by Time on this magic spot.

In the centre of the lawn stood a dial, inscribed with the old dial
motto:

The Hours Pass and are Numbered.

Phyl paused for a moment just as she had paused in the street, and
Pinckney looking at her noticed again that uptilt of the head, and that
far away look as of a person who is trying to remember or straining to
hear.

Then a voice from the house came across the broad veranda leading from the
garden to the lower rooms.

A female voice that seemed laughing and scolding at the same time.

"Dinah! Dinah! bless the girl, will she never learn sense-- Dinah! Ah,
there you are. How often have I told you to put General Grant in the sun
first thing in the morning?-- You've been dusting! I'll dust you. Here,
get away."

Out on the veranda, parrot cage in hand, came a most surprising lady.
Antique yet youthful, dressed as ladies were wont to dress of a morning in
long forgotten years, bright eyed, and wrathfully agitated.

"Aunt," cried Pinckney. "Here we are."

The sun was in Miss Pinckney's eyes; she put the cage down, shaded her
eyes and stared full at Phyl.

"God bless me!" said Miss Pinckney.

"This is Phyl," said he, as they came up to the verandah steps.

Miss Pinckney, seeming not to hear him in the least, took the girl by both
hands, and holding her so as if for inspection stared at her.

Then she turned on Pinckney with a snap.

"Why didn't you tell me--she's--why, she's a Mascarene. Well, of all the
astonishing things in the world-- Child--child, where did you get that
face?"

Before Phyl could answer this recondite question, she found herself
enveloped in frills and a vague perfume of stephanotis. Maria Pinckney had
taken her literally to her heart, and was kissing her as people kiss small
children, kissing her and half crying at the same time, whilst Pinckney
stood by wondering.

He thought that he knew everything about Maria Pinckney, just as he had
fancied he knew himself till Phyl had shewn him, over there in Ireland,
that there were a lot of things in his mind and chara