which she needed. Warner's longing for this change might be
the precursor of his cure. Who could read the future?

CHAPTER III.

Backward and forward, from pantry to sideboard, from sideboard to china
closet, flitted Pocahontas Mason setting the table for breakfast.
Deftly she laid out the pretty mats on the shining mahogany, arranged
the old-fashioned blue cups and saucers, and placed the plates and
napkins. She sang at her work in a low, clear voice, more sweet than
powerful, and all that her hands found to do was done rapidly and
skillfully, with firm, accustomed touches, and an absence of jar and
clatter. In the center of the table stood a corpulent Wedgwood
pitcher, filled with geraniums and roses, to which the girl's fingers
wandered lovingly from time to time, in the effort to coax each blossom
into the position in which it would make the bravest show. On one
corner, near the waiter, stood a housewifely little basket of keys,
through the handle of which was thrust a fresh handkerchief newly
shaken out.

When all the arrangements about the table had been completed,
Pocahontas turned her attention to the room, giving it those manifold
touches which, from a lady's fingers, can make even a plain apartment
look gracious and homelike. Times had changed with the Masons, and
many duties formerly delegated to servants now fell naturally to the
daughter of the house. Perhaps the change was an improvement: Berkeley
Mason, the young lady's brother, maintained that it was.

Having finished her work, Pocahontas crossed the room to one of the
tall, old-fashioned windows, and pushed open the half-shut blinds,
letting a flood of sunshine and morning freshness into the room. Under
the window stood an ottoman covered with drab cloth, on which the
fingers of some dead and gone Mason had embroidered a dingy wreath of
roses and pansies. Pocahontas knelt on it, resting her arms on the
lofty window-sill, and gazed out over the lawn, and enjoyed the dewy
buoyance of the air. The September sunshine touched with golden glory
the bronze abundance of her hair, which a joyous, rollicking breeze,
intoxicated with dew and the breath of roses, tangled and tumbled into
a myriad witcheries of curl and crinkle. The face, glorified by this
bright aureole, was pure and handsome, patrician in every line and
curve, from the noble forehead, with its delicate brown brows, to the
well-cut chin, which spoke eloquently of breadth of ch