s huddle of mellowed relics. She it was who
interpreted for him the antique mysteries of house and town. She
paraded before him the treasures of her aunt, from the pewter plates
and silver-gilt candelabra to camphor-scented brocades long hidden in
cedar chests in the ghostly attic. But she performed her office with
irreverence; as when, in the attic's gloom, she held the festal gown
of some departed great-grandmother before her own robust figure to
show how tiny were grandmothers in those days, for the yoke but a
little more than half spanned her breadth as she smirked above it in
scorn of its narrowness.

In that subdued light the girl's skin was flawless, her eyes were shaded
to murkiness, and a mote-ridden shaft of sunlight struck her hair to a
radiant yellow. But out of doors these matters could be seen to another
effect. The hair was only a yellowish brown, the eyes lost their shadows
and became the lucid green of sea waves, and the face was spotted with
tiny freckles, like a bird's egg. He liked her best out of doors,
breathing as she did of wood and field and sky. Skirts she seemed to
wear under protest, as a wood nymph might humor, a little awkwardly, the
prejudice of an indoor tribe with which she chose to tarry. When she
raced over the lawn with her dog, it was not hard to see that clothing
was an ungraceful impediment, even the short-skirted gowns she wore by
day. In the longer affairs of evening, though she strove to subdue her
spirits to them, she still had an air of the open, as if she but played
at being a lady and might forget at any moment. Ewing was shyer of her
when evening brought this change of habit. At such times he found it
easier to talk to Mrs. Laithe, who sat--or, oftener, lay--with her eyes
turned from the light, speaking but little.

"I'm glad to be away from town," she said to him, as he sat a moment
beside her one day, "and I'm glad you're away. I need to be quiet, and
you shall do as you like. Virginia will go about with you and make you
gay. Virginia always makes us gay."

Unconsciously her hand had fallen on his sleeve, curling and fastening
there, and when he rose he was disturbed to see that he had shaken off
so tender a thing.

"I didn't know you were holding me," he said, in apology, and lifted the
fallen hand.

"Such foolish hands! Your sister's are tiny, too, but they look as if
they could turn a doorknob." He leisurely turned it this way and that to
see its lines, and compa