Switzerland--and lived but three months. If anybody was ever alone, it
was that poor lady, I'm sure. There was no big house like theirs
anywhere about--no county families, as you might say--and those that
had called from the village she wouldn't see, in her mourning. And yet
out of that house she would not go, because he had loved it so; it was
pitiful.

There's no good argle-bargling over it, as my mother used to say, I'd
do the same again! For I began it with the best of motives, and as
innocent as a babe, myself, of the real truth, you see.

I can shut my eyes, now, and it all comes back to me as it was in the
old garden, of autumn afternoons--I always think of Childerstone in the
autumn, somehow. There was an old box hedge there, trimmed into balls
and squares, and beds laid out in patterns, with asters and marigolds
and those little rusty chrysanthemums that stand the early frosts so
well. A wind-break of great evergreens all along two sides kept it
warm and close, and from the south and west the sun streamed in onto
the stone dial that the Childress of General Washington's time had had
brought over from home. It was set for Surrey, Hodges told me once,
and no manner of use, consequently, but very settled and home-like to
see, if you understand me. In the middle was an old stone basin, all
mottled and chipped, and the water ran out from a lion's mouth in some
kind of brown metal, and trickled down its mane and jaws and splashed
away. We cleaned it out, she and I, one day, _pretending we had help_,
and Hodges went to town and got us some gold fish for it. They looked
very handsome there. Old John kept the turf clipped and clean and
routed out some rustic seats for us--all grey they were and tottery,
but he strengthened them, and I smartened them up with yellow chintz
cushions I found in the garret--and I myself brought out two tiny
arm-chairs, painted wood, from the loft in the coach house. We'd sit
there all the afternoon in September, talking a little, me mending and
my mistress embroidering on some little frocks I cut out for her. We
talked about the children, of course. They got to be as real to me as
to her, almost. Of course at first it was all what they _would_ have
been (for she was no fool, Mrs. Childress, though you may be thinking
so) but by little and little it got to be what they _were_. It
couldn't be helped.

Hodges would bring her tea out there and she'd eat heartily, for she
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