Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/113

 house she saw that the workshop door was open to the warm night air and that Mr. Reynolds was as busy as ever inside. It made a quaint picture, the shadowy room, the brilliant circle of light, the old man's intent, intelligent face bent over his work, the black crow sitting immovable as a statue on the corner of the table. A pleasant noise of quietly whirring wheels came out of the door, a peaceful, comfortable song that mingled with the cheery chirp of a cricket in the grass. It was such a happy, untroubled scene. No presentiment of evil could be lurking that night in any bones, but Michael's.

When Elizabeth returned with the little tree, David was as entranced with it as she had been. It stood on the edge of the basin in the last of the failing twilight and, in its airy grace of form and glittering of jade and jewels, it seemed scarcely a thing of reality at all. Miss Miranda laid her knitting on her knee for the light was gone at last. The sunset colors had faded in the water and the fireflies were beginning to wink and shine in the shadows of the pine trunks as she began.