e it the appearance
of a prettily set scene. She came toward me, a slender figure in white.
She seemed taller in white; as she took a few steps toward me, I was
aware of a stateliness I had missed at the shore. A queenly young
person, but as unaffectedly cordial and friendly as in the bright
morning sunlight.

"Mrs. Farnsworth, Mr. Singleton."

Mrs. Farnsworth was a pleasant-faced, white-haired woman with remarkably
fine, dark eyes. If the positions had been changed--if Mrs. Farnsworth
had been my uncle's choice of a wife, the situation would have been much
more real. I instantly liked Mrs. Farnsworth. She uttered a few
commonplaces in an uncommonplace tone without pausing in her knitting.
Mrs. Bashford had been knitting too, and as she sat down she took up her
yarn and needles. It was a sweater, I think; it doesn't matter. What
matters is that her hands moved swiftly and deftly. Her manner of
knitting was charming. She knew that I was watching her hands and
remarked with a graceful turn of the head:

"For an English boy somewhere! I began by knitting for my brother and
cousins, but"--her head bent lower--"that isn't for me to do any more."
Her eyes, turned upon me for a moment, were bright with tears.

I was speaking of the splendid valor of Englishmen I had known in France
when Antoine announced dinner.

It had been years since the house had known a woman's hand, and it was
astonishing how humanized it had become in a few hours. The long
dining-room, always a bare, forbidding place, had been reduced to cosey
proportions by screens, and a small round table replaced the massive,
oblong affair that always looked as though it had been built into the
house by the carpenters.

"I found those lovely screens in the garret and thought we might as well
enjoy them, and that Lang Yao jar you see on the sideboard oughtn't to
be hidden in the vault."

"I am sure Uncle Bash would be happy to know you care for these things
so much," I said, noting that the white roses she had chosen for the
jar--I knew the choice was hers--served to emphasize the deep red of its
exquisite glaze.

"I am among the unelect," remarked Mrs. Farnsworth. "When I am told that
such things are beautiful I am immediately convinced. I say they are
beautiful, and that is enough."

"That has always been enough for me," I replied. "My uncle used to try
to interest me, and I wore out a good many pairs of shoes following him
through museums and salesrooms