He laughed as he put down the bright gold skein. "Shall I help you to wind it, Ellen?"
"Thank you, but we don't wind floss silk. It would deaden its beauty. Arthur! do you know that the swallows have come?"
"The swallows! Then this summer weather will stay with us, for those birds have a sure instinct. It is early for them to be here."
"I saw one this morning. It may be only an avant-courier, come to report on the weather to the rest."
She laughed lightly at her own words, and there ensued another pause. Captain Bohun broke it.
"What a shocking thing this is about Edmund North!"
"What is a shocking thing?" she asked, with indifference, going on with her work as she spoke. Arthur Bohun, who was busy again with the pale blue violets, scarcely as blue as his own eyes, lifted his face and looked at her.
"I mean altogether. The illness; the letter; the grief at home. It is all shocking."
"Is Edmund North ill? I did not know it."
"Ellen!"