Scarcely moved by the summer breeze, a few slow clouds drifted away--away to westward--gently and calmly as the first promises of night stole up the world.
An arbor, bowered with wistarias and the waxen spikes of the new fleur de vie, stood near the woodbine-covered wall edging the cliff. Among its leaves the soft air rustled very lovingly. A scent of many blossoms hung over the perfumed evening.
Upon the lawn one last, belated robin still lingered. Its mate called from a sycamore beyond the hedge, and with an answering note it rose and winged away; it vanished from the sight.
Allan and Beatrice, watching it from the arbor, smiled; and through the smile it seemed there might be still a trace of deeper thought.
“How quickly it obeyed the call of love!” said Allan musingly. “When that comes what matters else?”
She nodded.
“Yes,” she answered presently. “That call is still supreme. Our Frances--”
She paused, but her eyes sought the half-glimpsed outlines of another cottage there beyond the hedge.
“We never realized, did we?” said Allan, voicing her thought. “It came so suddenly. But we haven't lost her, after all. And there are still the others, too. And when grandchildren come--”
“That means a kind of youth all over again, doesn't it? Well--”