ave been selfish with our good times. I'll have to go now,
dear. You--I may tell mother--that you are sorry--truly, Patty?"

Patience nodded. "But I reckon, it's a good deal on account of
Shirley's turn," she explained.

Hilary bit her lip.

"You don't suppose you could fix that up with mother? You're pretty
good at fixing things up with mother, Hilary."

"Since how long?" Hilary laughed, but when she had closed the door, she
opened it again to stick her head in. "I'll try, Patty, at any rate,"
she promised.

She went down-stairs rather thoughtful. Mrs. Shaw was busy in the
study and Pauline had gone out on an errand. Hilary went up-stairs
again, going to sit by one of the side windows in the "new room."

Over at the church, Sextoness Jane was making ready for the regular
weekly prayer meeting; never a service was held in the church that she
did not set all in order. Through one of the open windows, Hilary
caught sight of the bunch of flowers on the reading-desk. Jane had
brought them with her from home. Presently, the old woman herself came
to the window to shake her dust-cloth, standing there a moment, leaning
a little out, her eyes turned to the parsonage. Pauline was coming up
the path, Shirley and Bell were with her. They were laughing and
talking, the bright young voices making a pleasant break in the quiet
of the garden. It seemed to Hilary, as if she could catch the wistful
look in Jane's faded eyes, a look only half consciously so, as if the
old woman reached out vaguely for something that her own youth had been
without and that only lately she had come to feel the lack of.

A quick lump came into the girl's throat. Life had seemed so bright
and full of untried possibilities only that very morning, up there on
Meeting-House Hill, with the wind in one's face; and then had come that
woman, following the doctor down from the path. Life was surely
anything but bright for her this crisp August day--and now here was
Jane. And presently--at the moment it seemed very near indeed to
Hilary--she and Paul and all of them would be old and, perhaps,
unhappy. And then it would be good to remember--that they had tried to
share the fun and laughter of this summer of theirs with others.

Hilary thought of the piece of old tapestry hanging on the studio wall
over at the manor--of the interwoven threads--the dark as necessary to
the pattern as the bright. Perhaps they had need of Sextoness Jane, of
the