Pan is dead, great Pan is dead—
Pan, Pan is dead."
And then, as they listened, the gulls' cry came to them, toned by the distance, softened by the murmur of the wind into a requiem for the dead Balder.
After all he did not tell her what he had meant to. He would put off the evil day.
Everybody—children, I mean—was anxious about examinations. Very few really longed for them, but there was the vacation beyond.
She had been wandering about one afternoon, Bruno keeping close to her side, though there was little to call strangers up this way. The view was finer from the Presidio, and the principal fishing ground was farther down below. So, when Bruno gave a growl, she started and glanced about, and saw some one toiling over the rocks with a cane. A very old woman it seemed, as she leaned upon her stick, and hardly knew which way to go.
"Hush, Bruno, hush!" she commanded.
The figure came nearer. Bruno was not at all pleased with it.
The rough hair was a grayish white. A flowered handkerchief was tied over it with a knot that hid the chin. The garments were coarse and faded, the short skirt of a Mexican woman, and clumsy shoes.
"It is Laverne Chadsey." Something in the voice connected it with the past. And now that she straightened herself up, she was quite tall.