“I must go and see her about breakfast,” said Anne, rising.
“I thought you would play to us.” Michael’s voice was wistful as a child’s. “Anne always plays to us after dinner,” he explained to Timothy.
“I don’t play,” disclaimed Anne; “I only hum a little. There—tuck yourself up—I’ll play for a while.” She brought his pipe over to the hammock, and arranged two chairs undemonstratively tangent, before she went in to the piano.
Timothy, who had wandered into the yard, gazed at Michael; he was puffing peacefully as the simple little Irish ballad came to emphasize his comfort.
“Does the Lady Elinore always sing like that?” Timothy asked Gladys-Marie, who appeared (quite without reason) on the side porch.
Gladys-Marie listened. “I guess it’s you,” she said, finally, fumbling with her pompadour. “Sometimes she sounds kind a sad, but—I guess nobody could help pinchin’ their gladness a little when you’re around——” Her eyes under the pompadour went from Timothy to the two chairs Anne had left. One of them was occupied. “Her hair curls real pretty, don’t it?” she added, generously—for Doromea and Gladys-Marie had a vegetable understanding only. “An’ that rose-color is awful becomin’——”
Timothy threw away his light and turned toward the rose-sprigged chair. “It is a pretty dress, isn’t it?”
“Lady Elinore made it,” returned Gladys-Marie, proudly. “Sure it’s a pretty dress!”
Doromea and Michael and Timothy sat on the porch. “I can’t think it has been really two weeks since you’ve been here.” From the steps Doromea looked at Timothy a bit dolefully. “But it must be—since it was two weeks ago we—we sent the book off. Must you actually go to-morrow, Timothy?”
“It seems a breach of sense to admit it,” Timothy agreed, looking at her through the gloaming, “but my editors imagine that the summer has created some new Plain People—at least they want me to come and see.”