Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/664

612 the light of the later afternoon. Wilbraham, a college town, had a curious blending of life in its elm-shaded streets. There was the quiet of an ancient spot where tradition had been transmitted unchanged from generation to generation, and flickering about it, like sunlight on still water, the life of youth. Ample houses slept there in colonial calm, and boys went trotting past them, eyes set forward and hands clenched. There was a placid river between two lines of trees, and bare-armed athletes strained upon it, to the beat of oars.

Constance took one glance at the wide horizon before she found herself invited by a bony, white-haired woman leaning from a chaise.

"I won't leave the hoss," the woman called. "Should you just as soon hand your check to Timothy Peters? Timothy, you take this check, an' bring her trunk along next time you come."

Timothy, a lank denizen, accepted the check, and eyed the traveller with an air of just appraisement. Constance knew at once that she was "Blaise's widder" to the village. Blaise had told her all its little annals, how they were sown and garnered.

"You git right in here," said the woman, and when Constance complied, old White rocked sleepily away.

"You must be Mary King," said Constance.

"How'd you know?" asked Mary, in quick delight. "I guess he must ha' told ye."

"Yes, he told me. He told me about making candy in the kitchen."

Way over there in Europe, he told you that?"

"Yes; and how you hid him under the eight-legged table when he didn't want to go to school."

Mary chuckled in proud retrospect. Then her face clouded. "We had high times," she said, "high times in them days."

They loitered along the High Street, with its spacious houses, none better than another, and turned in at the driveway of one great place. Constance leaned far out of the carriage to look. It seemed as if he might be by to welcome her, so often had they taken this journey hand in hand and rejoiced at their home-coming.

"There's the big lilac," she said to herself.

But Mary heard, and her old eyes were dimmed.

"And the horse-block and the mulberry-tree," said Constance. "I believe that's the path to the gooseberry-patch and the old well."

"There's Mis' Burton on the door-step," said Mary, and dropped the reins. Old John was coming from the stable, his thin face keen with interest. Constance smiled her recognition at him, and immediately there were tears in his eyes, too.

Madam Burton stood there on the steps, framed by the honeysuckle trellis. She was a stately woman, with the beauty born of a large-featured significance veiled by the placidity of age. She made no pretence at dressing in a modern way. Her black silk was even severe in its plain waist and the fall of the gathered skirt. She wore a lawn kerchief and a cap. Constance, seeing Blaise's look in her, was shaken. Tears were rare visitants with her, but when she stepped to the door-stone where the old lady was awaiting her, they were running down her cheeks. The mother took her hands and seemed to steady her.

"There, dear, there!" she said. "Come right in."

Constance followed her. The moment was poignant and yet comforting. There was pain in it, and a homely pleasure she had not felt since Blaise had died. Every corner of the house, as it saluted her, brought its pang of welcome. It had stood unchanged since he saw it, and now she almost heard his laugh and touched the bitter memory of his talk about it. She was comforted in that she seemed about to come upon him, and yet smitten by a keen, new heat of pain because, amid so many voices, his was still.

She sank on the sofa in the great living-room, and drew Madam Burton down beside her. There they sat for a moment with clasped hands, the mother recognizing the tension of this homecoming, and visibly soothing her through an attitude of mind. Constance caught her breath once or twice, and then controlled herself.

"No, Mary, I'll take her up myself," said Madam Burton, when Mary King appeared expectantly.