long morning before her. The doctor telephoned that
he could not come before noon. Judge Emery, after his proprietary
good-by kiss, advised her to be quiet and rest. She looked a little
pale, he thought, and he was afraid that, after her cool ocean voyage,
she would find the heat of an Ohio September rather trying. Indeed, as
Lydia idled for a moment over the dismantled breakfast table she was by
no means moved to activity. Dark shades were everywhere drawn down and
the house was like a dimly-lighted cave, but through this attempt at
protection the sun was making itself felt in a slowly rising,
breathless, moist heat.

Lydia climbed the stairs to her mother's room. She was looking forward
to a long visit, but finding the invalid asleep she turned away from the
door rather blankly. She was as yet too much a stranger in her own home
to have at hand the universal trivial half-dozen unfinished tasks that
save idle women from the perils of uninterrupted thought. The ribbons
were all run in her pretty underwear; she owed no notes to anyone,
because she had been at home too short a time to have received any
letters; her hair had been washed the last day on the steamer, and her
new dresses needed no mending. Her trunks had been unpacked the day
before by her mother's competent hands, which had also arranged every
detail of her tasteful room until to touch it would disturb the effect.

Lydia began to experience that uneasy, unsettling discomfort that comes
to modern people in ordinary modern life if some unusual circumstance
throws them temporarily on their own resources. She lingered aimlessly
for some time at the head of the stairs, and then, leaning heavily
against the rail, began to descend slowly, one step at a time, to
prolong the transit. Where the stairs turned she noticed a stain on the
crisp sleeve of her white dress. It came, evidently, from one of the
grapes she had eaten that morning under the maple tree. A current of
cool air blew past her. It was the first relief from the stagnation of
the sultry day and, sitting down on the landing, she lost herself in
prolonged meditation.

In the obscurity of the darkened hall she was scarcely visible save as a
spot of light showing dimly through the balustrade, and she sat so still
that the maid, stepping about below, did not see her. On her part, Lydia
noticed but absently this slight stir of domestic activity, nor, after a
time, louder but muffled noises from the dining-r