But half-way down the drive a thin voice floated out to him—
“Candles—a pound of candles—if you could?”
He looked back, and there she stood on the doorstep, eye-cornering Andy from afar, with strands of brownish hair and odd bits of cheap white lace fluttering about her.
“All right,” he shouted back; but to himself he grunted, “Silly old kitten. What on earth did Aunt Dixon get me an old fool like that for?”
Then a sudden waft of lilac scent warmed by sunshine, which is the essence of spring, swept across Andy’s freckled nose, and he felt kind to all the world.
“Oh, let her be a kitten! I don’t care. It’s hardish lines on an old woman like that having to go out into service——”
Old woman!
What a glorious thing it is that nobody can see into the mind of anybody else.
Andy turned into Parson’s Lane, where the birds sang, and wild flowers bloomed earlier than anywhere else, and lovers walked silent on summer evenings; and he began to whistle from pure happiness. Then he remembered his position and hummed the “March of the Men of Harlech” instead.
The widow’s house stood at the farther end of the village, and when Andy went in at the farm gate he saw preparations going forward for that little tragedy, a country sale. The room into which he was ushered stood carpetless, miraculously swept and garnished, its large table crowded with glass and china that had remained for years hidden in the great storeroom, excepting on rare festivals, when it was brought out with care and put away by the hands of the mistress. A big sideboard filled one wall.