he had seen the
pussy cat and had heard the tinkling bell, laid it down with a feeling
almost of awe.

She wrote Geoffrey about it. It was her first real letter to him. She had
written one little note of forgiveness and of friendliness, but she had
felt that for a time at least she should do no more than that, and Uncle
Rod had commended her resolution.

"Hot fires had best burn out," he said.

"If you never do anything else," Anne wrote to Geoffrey, "you can be
content. There isn't a line of pot-boiling in it. It is as if you had
dipped your pen in magic ink. Rereading it to Uncle Rodman has brought
back the nights when we talked it over, and I can't help feeling a little
peacock-y to know that I had a part in it.

"And now I am going to tell you what Uncle Rod's comment was when I
finished the very last word. He sat as still as a solemn old statue, and
then he said, 'Geoffrey Fox is a great man. No one could have written
like that who was sordid of mind or small of soul.'

"If you knew my Uncle Rodman you would understand all that his opinion
stands for. He is never flattering, but he has had much time to think--he
is like one of the old prophets--so that, indeed, I sometimes feel that
he ought to sing his sentences like David, instead of saying wise things
in an ordinary way. And his proverbs! he has such a collection, he is
making a book of them, and he digs into old volumes in all sorts of
languages--oh, some day you must know him!

"I am going back to Crossroads. It seems that my work lies there. And I
have great news for you. I am to live with Mrs. Brooks. She has her
cousin, Sulie Tyson, with her, but she wants me. And it will be so much
better than Bower's.

"All through Mrs. Nancy's letters I can read her loneliness. She tries to
keep it out. But she can't. She is proud of her son's success--but she
feels the separation intensely. He has his work, she only her thoughts of
him--and that's the tragedy.

"In the meantime, here we are at Cousin Margaret's doing funny little
stunts in the way of cooking and catering. We can't afford the kind of
housekeeping which requires servants, so it is a case of plain living and
high thinking. Uncle Rod hates to eat anything that has been killed, and
makes all sorts of excuses not to. He won't call himself a vegetarian,
for he thinks that people who label themselves are apt to be cranks. So
he does our bit of marketing and comes home triumphant with his basket
innoce