words through the murmur of the water, dripping from the grey rock, and
falling into the clear pool beneath.

Sunday morning was always an occasion of idleness. Indeed, they would
never have got breakfast if Mrs. Darnell, who had the instincts of the
housewife, had not awoke and seen the bright sunshine, and felt that the
house was too still. She lay quiet for five minutes, while her husband
slept beside her, and listened intently, waiting for the sound of Alice
stirring down below. A golden tube of sunlight shone through some
opening in the Venetian blinds, and it shone on the brown hair that lay
about her head on the pillow, and she looked steadily into the room at
the 'duchesse' toilet-table, the coloured ware of the washstand, and the
two photogravures in oak frames, 'The Meeting' and 'The Parting,' that
hung upon the wall. She was half dreaming as she listened for the
servant's footsteps, and the faint shadow of a shade of a thought came
over her, and she imagined dimly, for the quick moment of a dream,
another world where rapture was wine, where one wandered in a deep and
happy valley, and the moon was always rising red above the trees. She
was thinking of Hampstead, which represented to her the vision of the
world beyond the walls, and the thought of the heath led her away to
Bank Holidays, and then to Alice. There was not a sound in the house; it
might have been midnight for the stillness if the drawling cry of the
Sunday paper had not suddenly echoed round the corner of Edna Road, and
with it came the warning clank and shriek of the milkman with his pails.

Mrs. Darnell sat up, and wide awake, listened more intently. The girl
was evidently fast asleep, and must be roused, or all the work of the
day would be out of joint, and she remembered how Edward hated any fuss
or discussion about household matters, more especially on a Sunday,
after his long week's work in the City. She gave her husband an
affectionate glance as he slept on, for she was very fond of him, and so
she gently rose from the bed and went in her nightgown to call the maid.

The servant's room was small and stuffy, the night had been very hot,
and Mrs. Darnell paused for a moment at the door, wondering whether the
girl on the bed was really the dusty-faced servant who bustled day by
day about the house, or even the strangely bedizened creature, dressed
in purple, with a shiny face, who would appear on the Sunday afternoon,
bringing in an early