ter; she could give herself
completely, yet remain oddly incorruptible; in a word, hopeless, and
usually beloved of those who thought her so.

With all this, however, she was not quite what is called a 'sweet
woman--a phrase she detested--for there was in her a queer vein of
gentle cynicism. She 'saw' with extraordinary clearness, as if she had
been born in Italy and still carried that clear dry atmosphere about her
soul. She loved glow and warmth and colour; such mysticism as she felt
was pagan; and she had few aspirations--sufficient to her were things as
they showed themselves to be.

This morning, when she had made herself smell of geraniums, and fastened
all the small contrivances that hold even the best of women together,
she went downstairs to her little dining-room, set the spirit lamp
going, and taking up her newspaper, stood waiting to make tea.

It was the hour of the day most dear to her. If the dew had been brushed
off her life, it was still out there every morning on the face of
Nature, and on the faces of her flowers; there was before her all the
pleasure of seeing how each of those little creatures in the garden had
slept; how many children had been born since the Dawn; who was ailing,
and needed attention. There was also the feeling, which renews itself
every morning in people who live lonely lives, that they are not lonely,
until, the day wearing on, assures them of the fact. Not that she was
idle, for she had obtained through Courtier the work of reviewing music
in a woman's paper, for which she was intuitively fitted. This,
her flowers, her own music, and the affairs of certain families of
cottagers, filled nearly all her time. And she asked no better fate than
to have every minute occupied, having that passion for work requiring no
initiation, which is natural to the owners of lazy minds.

Suddenly she dropped her newspaper, went to the bowl of flowers on the
breakfast-table, and plucked forth two stalks of lavender; holding them
away from her, she went out into the garden, and flung them over the
wall.

This strange immolation of those two poor sprigs, born so early,
gathered and placed before her with such kind intention by her maid,
seemed of all acts the least to be expected of one who hated to hurt
people's feelings, and whose eyes always shone at the sight of flowers.
But in truth the smell of lavender--that scent carried on her husband's
handkerchief and clothes--still affected her so st