“Is it deep?” Elizabeth asked, looking down into the quiet water that reflected Dick’s image so clearly.
“It is at one side, but not at the other,” Miss Miranda answered. “Just here you can touch the bottom if you stretch your arm, but it slopes sharply and is deep enough for swimming over at the other edge. Watch the water and, as it grows darker, you will see the stars come out. Just above the reflection of that tallest pine tree will be the big stars of the Lion, and the curve of the Sickle.”
The twilight fell as they sat there talking until, it seemed to Betsey almost by magic, there was the bright star twinkling in the water just as Miss Miranda had said, with other pinpoints of light that grew gradually clearer to show the golden Sickle and the white blur of the Milky Way.
“It is strange how I always loved to watch them,” Miss Miranda said, peering into the quiet water as intently as Betsey; “I used to see all the Signs of the Zodiac, that I believed from their name were so mysterious, but that were pictured here so plainly, month by month, that they became as simple as every day. Michael believes that good or ill fortune all goes by luck or charms; some people think that it depends only on what star is the ascendant. He always maintained, after the house was burned, that it was because, when we set out on the journey that left it all alone, we none of us touched both sides of the gatepost as we went through the last time. And it was at the time when the group of stars called the Crab, the most unlucky constellation of them all, was shining in the pool. But I know it was only a bolt of lightning and a wooden roof and nobody at hand to save the place. It was burned to the ground almost before the neighbors saw the smoke and flames among the trees.”
“But don’t you want to rebuild it? Don’t you love it? Don’t you want to live here again?” Betsey asked eagerly.
Miss Miranda did not answer. It was evident that Elizabeth had put questions that she had no right to ask, so she pursued the matter no farther. The rising breeze had begun to stir the water once more, so that the stars rocked and twinkled and turned into long streaks of glimmering light. Dick had fluttered across the grass, mounted the broken house wall and now sat there in the dusk, cawing loudly.
“He must see something there behind the wall,” observed Elizabeth. “Oh, what is that?”
For Dick, bent on some marauding errand, had swooped down out of their sight, with a harsh cry that was answered immediately by the voice of some unseen person within the house. The blackened door burst open and there came through, first Dick, flying pell mell, then a dark figure outlined for a moment in the doorway. The brighter western sky showed beyond the roofless house, throwing the bent head and broad shoulders into sharp relief. The breeze, driving through the open door, swept forth a flutter of papers, the loose pages of a battered book, that spread far and wide across the grass.
“I beg your pardon,” said a voice, “I didn’t know any one was here, I thought it was only that mischievous Dick.”
The speaker came forward. It was David Warren.