Moonlight and the soft air of the English summer time redeem the soggy, rheumatic winters with their overcast days. A carpet of sod cut by the shadows of moon rays which gave lustre to her eyes! In months to come there were to be other evenings equally fine by nature's gentle beneficence, but none like this. There never could be again; for something was coming to the world which would leave nothing in human relations the same.
The cousinly party walked up and down or stopped to chat in changing groups, Henriette and Phil mostly together and Helen sometimes quite by herself. The happiest of all were the vicar and his wife. They were old enough to take happiness in its full measure; to enjoy that of their own years and by reflection that of youth.
"Are you pleased with him?" asked Mrs. Sanford when two white heads, much like the two at their dinner three thousand miles away, rested on their pillows.
"Yes, my dear. I shall write to Dr. Sanford that we claim part of his son. He is our Philip, too."
"Our Philip!" she repeated. "The family does not die out," she said, in relief at some of the weight of an old burden lifted.
"It survives very worthily over the seas," said her husband.
"How beautiful Henriette was to-night. She grows more charming as she matures, though I confess young people of this age puzzle me. I couldn't help thinking what a splendid pair they made. Ah, blood will tell!"
"And Helen grows more temperamental."
"Poor dear! I don't know what will become of her."
With accustomed leisure Henriette had taken off her gown. It had served well that evening. To her delicate sense it was a living thing, a servant subject to praise and reproach. Caressingly she laid it aside. The buckles of her slippers smiled at her, and she held the foot which she withdrew arched and turned it for inspection before thrusting it into the softer slipper fitted to enjoy the bare intimacy of such a small foot. Still more leisurely she undid her hair and brushed it, conscious that the picture in the frame before her was the same that she had momentarily set in the mirror beside a seventeenth cousin's at table.