'Now children, come in; bed-time!'

'Oh Anna!' came in a muffled reproachful chorus as four lap-cocks in the meadow into which Anna Hugo was looking over the garden wall at Old Lafer, sat up and revealed four children. Three were girls, by name Antoinette, Emmeline, and Joan. All were handsome—with creamy skins, dark eyes, and curly brown hair hanging to their waists over holland smocks. These smocks were cut low at the neck and short-sleeved, allowing rebellious shoulders to push themselves with shrugs and twists from their confinement and showing dimpled, nut-brown elbows.

Anna smiled as the children pushed back their hair and turned their flushed faces to her. She wondered whose voice would be the first to protest against her hard-heartedness.

'We're playing at graves,' said Emmeline timidly, winks and nods having failed to make Antoinette take the lead.

'For the very last time this year,' said Antoinette.

'Because this is the very last hay left out at Old Lafer; Elias says so,' said Jack.

'Well, of course it is,' said Antoinette; 'haven't we played graves in all the other fields in turn, silly boy?'

'Elias won't be long now, Anna,' said Emmeline. 'He's clearing the last sledge-load by the beck, and the game is he should guess which lap-cock is which of us.'

'And when he guesses right we give him a kiss,' said Joan.

'I don't,' said Jack.

'Because you're only a boy,' said Antoinette, whose vocation it seemed to snub Jack and thus temper any yielding to him as the only boy, to which others might be tempted.

'You may wait,' said Anna hastily, and as they re-covered themselves with hay with much subdued tittering and exhortations to caution, and calling out to Anna to be sure and say if a nose or foot were left visible, she climbed to the top of the wall and sat down.

The sun was low—a few moments more and it would sink below the moor behind the house. The shadows lay long on the grass. The garden was to the right of the front door, whose flight of uneven steps led down upon flags bright with golden bosses of stone-crop. Old Lafer had a long frontage and a steep thatched roof with deep eaves where swallows loved to build. The two rows of windows were latticed with leaded panes; monthly roses reached to the sills of the lower ones. A thick growth of ivy round the door was climbing to the eaves at the end of the house farthest from the garden, heightening the rough effect of the lichened stone. Below it a little stream, clear and cold as crystal, issued from beneath the dairy and slipped down the flags in a runnel, murmuring softly as though eager to hide in the fern-fringed trough on the other side of the wall. The walls were all full of rue, and polypody, and crane's-bill—a growth of years—which no one was allowed to touch. There was nothing Mr. Severn valued more about the place than its bits of untutored nature. He had a horror of the pruning-knife, which Elias would have applied ruthlessly to lilacs and thorns, clipping them back to look tidy. These, edging the fir clump that sheltered Old Lafer from the north, were allowed to overhang the garden, their wild sprays of bloom following in fragrance close upon the wall-flowers that grew in a thick border under the windows of the best parlour. The garden had been made for the best parlour years ago when Old Lafer was the Hall and the Marlowes lived there. It was full of old-fashioned flowers and herbs, a garden for bees to go mad in. Mr. Severn had a row of hives under the sunniest wall, and before the ling was in blow the bees boomed to and fro all day on wings that should have been tipsy if they were not. When the ling was ablow the garden knew them no more.

It was the end of July, and there was a flush on the moors which rolled abruptly to the sky-line behind the house. In front the meadows dipped into the valley of the Woss, then rose again to the village of East Lafer. After this, foliage and cultivation increased. The plain stretching away to the wolds was varied with fallow and stubble and pasture. Its tints were opalescent. Anna loved better the deep blue shadows that lurked in every hollow of the hills, showing their mouldings and intensifying their sunshine.

When Elias Constantine came up the slope from the beck, he was ahead of the sledge. His rake was over his shoulder and he leant on a holly stick. He did not wait for the pony, straining every muscle to land its load, but casually remarking, 'Hi, come up, Jane my bonny one!' made for the lap-cocks. He looked up to the business, and winked at Anna as much as to say so. He lumbered round, prodding one after the other and contriving to gather some hint for his guesses. He was never random and hated to be wrong. His keen old eyes did not deceive him now. When Jane reached them they were all ready to go up the field together, the girls shaking hay-seeds out of their hair, Jack pushing fodder under Jane's nose each time Elias 'breathed' her.

'I'm so sorry all our hay's in,' said Antoinette, looking across the beck to fields still in swathe and pike.

'You wouldn't be if you'd the getting of it,' said Elias. 'It's a rarely exercising time for watching the weather and the wankly ways o' Providence wi' shower and shine.'

'Lias, why won't Jane eat this hay?' asked Jack, whose wisps were snuffed at and disdained.

'Because she's full.'

'Oh! you ought to say she's had plenty; Anna says so,' said Joan.

'Danged if I ought to say otherwise than I do, missie.'

'Oh! what a jolly word, banged!' said Jack.

'I reckon I was wrong there,' said Elias sheepishly.

'It wasn't banged, there's nothing to bang,' said Antoinette.

'I know there are no doors out here, Netta——'

'Now you mean Dinah when she's cross. For shame, Jack.'

'I lay that's when some one's crossed her,' said Elias, who as Dinah's husband not only knew how doors could bang but was loyal in his excuses.

They had reached the stile now and Elias sent them over it. In his opinion Miss Anna had waited quite long enough for the 'baÄrns.' Not a bit of quiet had she had that day and she must be longing for it. She was as the apple of his eye. Mrs. Severn might be a handsome lady but she did not 'act handsome.' He begrudged calling 'Missis' one who was only such as 'Master's' wife, and in spite of Dinah's exhortations to conventional respect he very rarely did call her 'Missis'; she was generally 'Clo' in his vocabulary. What was there of the mistress in a woman whose time was spent in a hammock under the trees in summer, and on the sofa in winter, twiddling on a guitar or fiddle or playing with her children, while her husband ordered the dinners, made up the tradesmen's books, and at nights had his rest broken by acting as head-nurse? There had been no comfort about the place until Miss Anna had left school. Yet Mr. Severn adored his wife! It 'maddled' him how a man of sense could be so daft! His opinion of him would have sunk several degrees had he not adored Miss Anna too and thus redeemed his character from the charge of being taken by good looks. Even Elias knew she was not handsome by the side of Mrs. Severn and her children, but she had a smile and a sparkle in her eyes such as Mrs. Severn never had.

Anna jumped from the wall, and crossing the garden met the children on the flags. They all trailed through the hall and up the shallow oak stairs, talking in whispers lest mother or baby were asleep. At the top various strips of old-fashioned corded drugget led to the several bedroom doors. Mrs. Severn's door was ajar and Jack and Anna peeped in together, he peering round her skirts and shaking his curly head for the benefit of the others. There was no sound or movement. The room was low, heavily-furnished with mahogany and looked dark. A settee covered with red dimity was drawn across one window. Its cushions were piled high at one end, and on them rested a dark head and the ivory-like profile of a face on which fell the last soft gleams of sunshine.

'Clothilde,' said Anna gently.

There was no answer but she advanced, and leaning over the back of the settee she found that Mrs. Severn's eyes were wide open.

'Come in, children, mother's awake,' she said.

The door was flung wide and they all trooped in and up to the cot where the baby lay.

'Ah! Clothilde,' said Anna, 'there's none so deaf as those who won't hear, is there now? I was certain you were awake but you feel lazy, and the longer you lie here the lazier you will feel! The heat, added to that constitutional tendency, is stupefying, isn't it?'

She spoke satirically and smiled, but at the same moment tried to arrange the cushions more comfortably. Mrs. Severn, however, pushed her away and sat up.

'You always think me lazy when I'm tired; you are a tiresome contradictious creature,' she said.

'No, I don't, not always. But you would never be so tired if you were not so lazy, which thing is a paradox! And you look so strong and well to-night——'

'Strong! I never look strong, Anna; you might as well say robust at once. And you know I never look vulgar.'

'Dearest, who said a word about vulgarity? I only meant as much as I said. If to look strong means to be vulgar, then I am so and thank God for it. But you do look well to-night, and if Mr. Borlase saw you I'm certain he would say you were well. When are you going to delight our eyes by being in the parlour again, you beautiful woman? What an ugly duckling I am among you all, only Elias to comfort me with his "divine plain face of a woman." Perhaps mine may develop into that phase.'

She had taken up a brush from the dressing-table and loosened Mrs. Severn's hair. Brushed back from her forehead it swept the cushions in a dark cloudy mass. Her face was as pale as marble, for now there was no sunshine to tinge it. Its expression was one of statuesque repose. The perfect features admitted of no play of thought or feeling; they were not only blank as an empty page but suggested the inner blank of utter self-absorption. She looked dreamy and apathetic. Her eyes seemed larger but were no longer bright; their lustre was quenched as though an impalpable mist were drawn over them. One felt that whether in joy or sorrow her face would remain the same. But its beauty and refinement of chiselled repose was heightened into absolute fascination by that preoccupied indifference. It roused speculation. What had it been as a child's face? Had no emotion in girlhood overwhelmed the abstraction, or had some overwhelming emotion fixed it there? Would she grow old and still wear it? Death could not enhance its calm. Borlase, her doctor, giving her skilled attention in her hours of agony, felt with a strange shiver that even in her agony she was, in some strange way, impersonal—her epitaph, what could be more appropriate than this, 'She died as she had lived, coldly?'

And now Anna's deft fingers had gathered up the rich hair and were plaiting it into plaits to coil high on her head with a tiara-like effect. Mrs. Severn had raised herself to admit of this manipulation and watched it in a glass which Anna had put into her hands. When it was complete Anna stood back and surveyed her, her own face lit up with proud and enthusiastic delight. But this delight did not affect Mrs. Severn, who had been pondering over her last words.

'I don't believe in the divine getting inextricably mixed with the human,' she said.

'That's sheer perversity. You not only rob me of my crumb of comfort but make yourself out to be heterodox. I don't believe, moreover, that you ever have thought about it.'

'That is true.'

'Yes, you might say with Hodge, "I mostly thinks o' nowt." Hodge, digging, is excusable, for there's no inspiration in the mould where the only variety is in the size of the stones and the worms that he turns up. But you are so different. I'm sure you would be happier if you were busier—"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."'

Mrs. Severn listlessly submitted to the vehement kiss with which Anna finished her lecture.

'When you quote Satan I am at home, but I know nothing of Hodge,' she said in her slow mellifluous voice.

Anna laughed. It was like demonstrating logic to a jelly-fish to argue with Clothilde.

'I really believe that's a fact,' she said, 'though Hodge lives at your doors, and we'll hope Satan has no foothold in the neighbourhood. But how profane we are! How shocked Canon Tremenheere would be if he heard us! By the bye, do you know his sister Julia's husband is dead—died after a few weeks' illness?'

'What could she expect when she married again?'

'He was a strong man and she has been so ailing. What sorrows she has had!'

'Sorrows? And if she has, she has had great joys too.'

'Oh Clothilde! Well, let us hope that will console her now. Do you think it would console you?'

'Me? How can I say, Anna? I know neither, I have had neither. The superlative does not enter into my experience of life.'

'It's your own fault then, dearest,' said Anna wistfully. 'Life is what we make it. Joy won't come unbidden; we must help to prepare the ground or there'll only be a weedy plant that will wither in the sun. The joys of one are the cares of another. I suppose Dad and the children are cares to you.'

Mrs. Severn was silent. Anna turned, and leaning against the window looked down into the garden. Its midsummer brilliancy had faded with the sunshine, and the tangle of flowers, missing the caresses of breeze and sun and bees, looked subdued and shame-faced. At least so she fancied. A dewy sweetness hung above, floating up to her in incense-like whiffs. The landscape was becoming neutral. Above the valley there spread, as she looked, a haze of blue smoke from a cottage by the beck at the corner where it tumbled into the Woss.

'Mr. Borlase rode past about six,' said Mrs. Severn suddenly. She scrutinised Anna as she spoke.

'He would be going into Wherndale. Perhaps he'll come in for supper on his way home. Dad will be back soon.'

'You might let him see baby, she's been restless. But John is not coming home to-night. I've had a note from the office; he's gone to Scotland on business, something important occurred, and nothing would satisfy the Admiral but that he should start at once. And there's a letter from Rocozanne, from Ambrose, somewhere,' she added vaguely, searching in the folds of her dressing-gown. As that was useless she got up, and, while shaking her draperies, discovered it on the floor. Anna picked it up. It was addressed to her. She turned it over, half expecting to find the seal broken. Mrs. Severn had had a habit of opening all the Rocozanne letters until lately, when Anna had firmly expostulated. This, however, was intact.

'Why didn't you send it down?' said Anna. 'How long have you had it? You could have thrown it out when you heard me in the garden. You must have heard me there.'

'It was enclosed and I forgot it. John's news upset me. Really, the Admiral might have a little consideration for me. Now read the letter, Anna. Is there any news from Rocozanne? I suppose the Kerrs' yacht won't have got to Jersey yet; they can't have seen Miss Marlowe?'

'Oh dear no! They were only leaving Zante on the 15th. But I haven't time to read it now,' said Anna. Reproach had kindled an unexpected brilliancy over her whole face, and she looked at Mrs. Severn with eyes that suddenly glowed with finely controlled anger. 'Every one is busy because of the hay, and I'm going to see the children to bed. Come, children, kiss mother. What, Joan, pick-a-pack?'

She knelt for Joan to clasp her neck, then tucking her little fat legs under her arms, rose and careered on to the landing. Joan was not too tired to gurgle with laughter at the jogging. The others ran after them, having dabbed random kisses on Mrs. Severn's face and throat. They left the door wide open in spite of her charge to them to shut it.

'Netta, Jack, Jack,' she called. But they were heedless.

She watched them dart across the landing, and listened to the dying away down a passage of steps and voices. Then a door banged, raising reverberating echoes in the rambling old house, and when they died away, all was still. She got up and closed the door herself. As she re-crossed the room she did not pause at her baby's cot, but went up to the mirror and stood before it for some moments, thinking how admirably these loose white draperies set off her dark hair and sombre eyes. She had a strong impression that she ought to have been a prophetess, or a tragic singer. Nature had overlooked her own opportunities. There is a difference between being created and being a creation.