d higher yet, holding the secret of their loveliness,
until these should wither; when they too would burst into blossom, and
forestall the round-budded dahlia.

In the silence, many usually unheeded sounds made themselves very
plainly heard.

The tapping of the great magnolia-leaves upon the windows of the south
front; the rustling of the ilex; the ceaseless murmur of the river;
the near twittering or distant song of innumerable birds; the steady
hum of the saw-mill below; the call of the poultry-woman at the
home-farm, and the shrieking response of a feathered horde flying and
fighting for their food--sounds all so familiar as to pass unnoticed,
save in the absence of companionship.

As Lady Mary mused alone, she could not but recall other summer
afternoons, when she had not felt less lonely because her husband's
voice might at any moment break the silence, and summon her to his
side. Days when Peter had been absent at school, instead of, as now,
at play; and when the old ladies had also been absent, taking their
regular and daily drive in the big barouche.

Then she had prized and coveted the solitude of a summer afternoon on
the lawn, and had stolen away to read and dream undisturbed in the
shadow of the ilex.

It was now, when no vexatious restraint was exercised over her--when
there was no one to reprove her for dreaming, or to criticize or
forbid her chosen book--that solitude had become distasteful to her.
She was restless and dissatisfied, and the misty sunlit landscape had
lost its charm, and her book its power of enchaining her attention.

She had tasted the joy of real companionship; the charm of real
sympathy; of the fearless exchange of ideas with one whose outlook
upon life was as broad and charitable as Sir Timothy's had been narrow
and prejudiced.

She had scarcely dared to acknowledge to herself how dear John Crewys
had become to her, even though she knew that she rested thankfully
upon the certainty of his love; that she trusted him in all things;
that she was in utter sympathy with all his thoughts and words and
ways.

Yet she had wished him to go, that she might be free to devote herself
to her boy--to be very sure that she was not a light and careless
mother, ready to abandon her son at the first call of a stranger.

And John Crewys had understood as another might not have understood.
His clear head and great heart had divined her feelings, though
perhaps he would never quite know how pa