Mimy's house rose beside the orchard, a pretty cottage with a dooryard filled with cockscomb and larkspur and marigold. At the gate grew a bush of myrrh, and the porch had over it a gourd vine. Just So sat in the middle of the path, playing with red and blue blocks. At the sound of voices Susan appeared, a clear-brown, neat, and active woman. "Just So, don't you clutter up the path like that! Come this-a-way, Miss Marget!" She took them across the porch, where the gourd vine made so pleasant a pattern, into a little parlor, bright as a pin. They sat and talked, and then Susan said that she would bring Julia, and, leaving the room, reappeared, pushing a wheeled chair. In this sat Julia, who was almost a middle-aged woman, and had a slender, pleasing face, and was only a little lame in her mind.
Marget emptied the basket. "Oh, my!" said Julia, and again, "Oh, my!" With eager fingers she spread the bits of silk and velvet and satin and striped or flowered ribbon. "Flower-garden pieces! It will be a flower-garden quilt. I'll make a quilt like they have in heaven!"
"Shoo! Julia!" exclaimed Susan. "They don't have quilts in heaven. It ain't cold there!"
Julia's face took on an imploring, almost a frightened look. She turned to Marget. "If they don't have quilts I won't have anything to do!"
With all that she knew of Marget Land, Miss Darcy could but wonder at the luminous sweetness, the depth and the play with which Marget, seated by Julia, dealt with the latter's fears. All the bright pieces were spread over the knees of both. "In heaven you'll put rose and blue together, and this violet and green. And look how these flowered pieces go! Your quilts are for warmth and beauty, Julia, aren't they? Shut your eyes and see warmth and beauty, warmth and beauty!" She put her hand over the lame woman's hand. The latter's plaintive look changed, her eyes brightened, and she nodded her head. "Yes! To keep us warm; and they are lovely, like the flowers! Warm like the sun is!"
"Yes. Warmth and beauty—warmth and beauty! So in heaven you're to keep on with warmth and beauty. And you'll learn, too, how well wisdom goes with them. Their quilts aren't just like these quilts, but you won't care for that. You'll be putting together and giving beautiful, bright things!"
Julia caressed a length of flowered ribbon. "That's what I think. They're warm and beautiful, warm and beautiful! And every one I give a quilt to says, 'I'm so glad I've got one!'"
"When you put that piece in, think 'warm and beautiful' for Mrs. Gray. She gave it to you. And Miss Lucy Allen gave the beautiful blue piece."
When they had quitted the porch with the gourd vine, and the dooryard, and the gate by the myrrh bush, and were under the orchard trees, Marget said: "She's been making quilts for twenty years. Perhaps two a year, and into each one goes I do not know what dim thinking and feeling, warmth and beauty, for such and such a one!"
It was Miss Darcy's habit to rest a little in her own room after dinner. In the midafternoon, coming downstairs, she found the door of Linden's study open. Linden turned his head, hearing her step. "Come in! Here are Marget and Curtin."