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 above would prove to be the familiar mounds of the weekly 'wash,' waiting to be sprinkled, piled high in the clothes-basket on the kitchen table; the hill beneath her, her own bed that squeaked when she turned; the sweet smell of the damp ground, the scented powder Laetitia used lately; and the swish of the cloud's skirts, Felix at his work-bench in the dining-room.

Suddenly she said out loud.

'I've thought of something else the pine is like.'

'What?'

'A buzz-saw through a closed door.'

'What do you know about buzz-saws?'

She didn't tell him. Strange to share so many fancies with a man, and so few facts. She had scarcely more than mentioned Felix and the three children to him. He knew that she lived outside Boston somewhere, and used to live in Wallbridge before she was married, but little more.

She had met him the second night after she arrived at Avidon's. She had finished dinner early and was sitting alone on the hotel verandah in the late sunshine, keenly aware of the unfamiliar peace about her, and the still sweet coolness of the air. As if, she thought, she'd suddenly stepped inside a big empty church from off a hot, crowded. Dr. Baird had remained for dinner that night. He had