was empty
except for the cat slipping round the corner with his mottled coat
shining. "Now listen," she said, not unkindly. "I saw you out of the
window, and there was no lady here. Why do you tell a story like that?"

The child looked at her in a preoccupied way and did not answer.

"I can't have you say things that are not so, Mary. If you do it again,
I have to whip you. Now pick up your doll-baby and come in."

She spoke of it to Conrad that evening, but he did not pay much
attention.

"I don't know if there is something wrong with Mary or, if she does see
some one, who it is," she said. "Do you know if there are gipsies
around?" He scarcely answered, and in a few minutes she heard him drive
down the road. She smiled to herself as she hurried through her work.
Then she put Mary to bed, though it was much earlier than usual, and
began to dress, while the little girl lay watching from among the
pillows.

Calista enjoyed the water like a sleek creature of two elements; her
white skirts crackled and flared; her hair hid her waist. When she had
finished her green dimity looked like foliage around a flower, and her
hazel eyes turned green to match it.

"I'm going on the front porch," she said. "You go to sleep like a good
girl."

She had sat with Mary in the evening as long as she could do so without
inconvenience. Now she saw no reason for continuing it. She had not
imagination enough to know what she was inflicting. Mary gazed after her
as a shipwrecked woman might watch a plank drifting out of reach, but
she said nothing; she shut her eyes and lay still for many minutes. She
was a timid child but not cowardly, and such tangible things as a cross
dog, a tramp, and a blacksnake in the orchard she had faced bravely, but
her terror of the dark was indefinite and unendurable. She opened her
eyes, shut them, and opened them again, looking for something dreadful.
The furniture was shapeless, the bedclothes dimly white, and each time
she looked it was darker. She did not know what she expected, and to see
nothing was almost worse. A carriage going down the road comforted her
as long as she could hear it, but it left a thicker silence. She pressed
her lids together, breathing quickly,--to move was like inviting
something to spring on her,--then she slid out of bed and ran down the
stairs, gave a frightened glance at the front door behind which sat her
aunt, who would send her up again, and slipped across the back porch