Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/89

Rh sorrow cannot drown this most normal of instincts. The large pier-glass apparently approved the brown dress, simple though it was, for it fitted her silver-birch symmetry perfectly. Simple, too, were the adornments enforced by a rigid economy, but the bitter-sweet added exquisite bits of colour. They had been crushed under her cloak, and, straight-seeing and little given to self-pity as she was, tonight she almost sentimentalized over their obvious symbolism as she rear ranged the vermilion and saffron sprays on her own troubled breast. But resolutely stifling the sigh, she fluffed up the scarlet leaves and berries in hair which almost held the sheen of the purple grackles in that earlier season when Ben was still there, then caught up a gift of Captain Harve's, a shawl from the Orient, and descended the stairs, her shoulders misted in its transparent gold.

"The very flower of girlhood," whispered kindly Mrs. Schauffler to her husband, as they stood near the door of the spacious parlour, their silver hair framed in a bower of russet oak-leaves, asters and golden-rod.

"The prettiest girl in the old town," he paternally supplemented.

And instead of one formal hand, the hostess grasped both of Sally's hands in her own, falling in love with her all over again, as men and women and children had a habit of doing each time they met her, while old Mr. Schauffler teased her as usual.

"It's lucky, Sally, that this isn't two hundred years ago—you'd be hanged for witchcraft, sure—I'll be hanged if you wouldn't!"