"I shall get back in time to help you; the train is due at 7:10. Your dress is already pressed, and ribbons and lace sewed on, but as you have not worn it, I want to be sure about the hang of that skirt. Your sash——"
"Your train is ready to start. Good-bye, Ma-Lila."
"Good-bye, dearie. I wish the club house and Dr. Burbridge were in Jericho! Then you could go with me."
Mrs. Mitchell kissed her companion's cheek and hurried to the car platform, where she paused a moment, looking back at the girl seated in her trap, balancing her lace parasol.
"Are you going directly home?"
"No. I shall call to inquire how Mrs. Whitfield is to-day, and as the bishop has come home from Florida I must congratulate him on his restoration to health. Bring me some titi blossoms."
The bell clanged, the engine puffed, and the train disappeared around a curve. An hour afterward, in front of the post-office, the mail for Nutwood was brought to the trap. Eglah took two letters addressed to herself, and placed the remainder with papers under the cushion of the trap seat.
"Oliver, stop at Holmein's garden. Then go on home and give the mail to father. If he has not returned from fishing, be careful to lay letters and papers on the library table in front of his chair. I shall walk from Holmein's."
The grounds of the florist were nearly a mile from the gates of Nutwood, and on a new street-car line extending to a park that overlooked the river. From Holmein's the broad, sandy road ran straight through thick woods to the avenue of the old house on the hill. Having secured a bunch of double white violets, Judge Kent's favorite flower, his daughter walked homeward. Ivory thuribles of magnolia and bay swung their fragrance up and down the nave of ancient pines, and the profound repose, the silence as of primeval wilds was broken only now and then by the antiphonal plaints of doves lamenting on the lofty green pine cornices, or a low preluding chord, as fingers of the wind touched the leafy pipes of the forest organ.
Many months had passed, and the procession of the seasons brought no comforting element to brighten the monotonous life that so severely taxed Eglah's patience. A card and dinner party on Judge Kent's birthday had pleased him for the moment, but while he praised the menu and decorations, no relaxation of chill politeness rewarded her. Only one al fresco festival was held. When nuts were ripe in autumn the young mistress had invited the children belonging to Sunday-schools and the orphan asylum in Y—— to come one afternoon to Nutwood and gather chestnuts and walnuts. In the grove long tables held refreshments, that were served by Eglah and Eliza to the hungry throng, and for the first time since the war hundreds of happy little ones raced and shouted under the ancestral trees. Several plank seats remained as souvenirs of the occasion, and to-day Eglah turned away from the avenue, and sat down between two young chestnuts. At her feet was a miniature doll house of walnut shells built to amuse a flaxen-haired tot who shrank tearfully from the sharp pricks of chestnut burrs, and begged for a "truly fairy tale."