"Yes, we did have a very good time. The children were here,—Basil and Susan D.,—and they and Peggy were fast friends. Oh, yes, it was a great holiday. Now, dear, you will want to rest a little, so I will leave you. Peggy will not be here till after lunch, so you will have time for a good rest, and to explore the garden, too, if you like. I am going now to arrange my flowers."
"Oh, might I help? I am not a bit tired, and I just love to arrange flowers. Do let me help, Margaret!"
"Very well," said Margaret, with a little inward sigh. She had her own ideas, and very definite ones, about the arrangement of flowers, in which she had exquisite taste; and her recollection of the way in which Peggy used to squeeze handfuls of blossoms tight into a vase, without regard to color or form, made her dread the assistance so heartily proffered; but Jean was quicker than Peggy had been at her age, and one glance at Margaret's first "effect," a rainbow combination of sweet-peas, showering over the side of a crystal bowl, filled her with ambition to emulate its beauty. The morning passed happily and busily, the more so that Hugh came in presently, with a chapter of Thoreau that Margaret "really must hear!" He read well, and his taste and Margaret's being much alike, they spent many pleasant hours together, he reading aloud, she with her flowers or her work. Jean, who had never heard of Thoreau, and was not bookish, tried to listen, but did not make much of it. She fell to meditating instead, and her bright eyes wandered curiously from one intent face to the other. Hugh never thought of reading aloud at home. To be sure, he was the only one who cared about reading, or had time for it. He and Margaret seemed to know each other very well, seeing what a short time he had been here. Jean, with all the eager romance of fifteen, straightway began the building of an air-castle, which seemed to her a fine structure indeed. Meantime, Hugh and Margaret, all unconscious of her scrutiny, were enjoying themselves extremely.
"'As polishing expresses the vein in marble and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. . . . When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum to us; we hear notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in unison with the pulse of Nature, and he steps to the measure of the universe; then there is true courage and invincible strength.'"
"How beautiful that is!" said Margaret.
"Yes; that is the particular passage I wanted to read to you. Have you ever had that feeling, fancying that you wake to the sound of music? I often have, when I have been sleeping out in the open—never within doors."
"No," said Margaret, "I don't think I ever have, Hugh; but what a pleasant thing it must be! I have never slept in the open, but even if I should, I fear my waking would be plain prose, like myself."
Hugh laughed, and glanced at her affectionately. "I haven't found much prose about you, Margaret," he said. "If I had, I should not have read you my secrets when Thoreau tells them for me. That reminds me, do you sing? I have not heard you, have I?"
"No; I wish I did, for I love music very much. Oh, I sing a very little, enough to join in a chorus—if there ever were a chorus at Fernley. I used to enjoy Rita's singing intensely; she has a very sweet voice."
"Some one was singing last night," Hugh went on; "I don't know why, but this passage reminds me—I heard a woman's voice singing,—a remarkable voice."