en or where or how I don't know."
They opened their books. A brilliant May afternoon throbbed, hummed,
sparkled all about them. The big wheels of the motor were deep in grass
and blossoms. On either side of the road, fields were gay with bees and
butterflies. Larks looped the blackberry-vines with quick flights;
mustard-tops showed their pale gold under the apple-blossoms.
Here and there a white cloud drifted in the deep, clear blue of the
sky. There had been rains a day or two before, and in the fragrant air
still hung a little chill, a haunting suggestion of wet earth and
refreshed blossoms. Somewhere near, but out of sight, a flooded creek
was tumbling noisily over its shallows.
Suddenly the Sunday stillness was broken by voices. The two women in
the motor looked at each other, listening. They heard a woman's voice,
singing; then a small boyish voice, then a man's voice. The speakers,
whoever they were, apparently settled down in the meadow, not more than
a dozen yards away, for a breathing space. A tangle of vines and bushes
screened them from the motor-car.
"Mother, are me and Billy going to turn the freezer?" said a child's
voice, and a man asked:
"Tired, old lady?"
"No, not at all. It's been a delicious walk," said the woman. The two
sitting in the motor gasped. "Yes, yes, yes, lovey," the woman's voice
went on, "you and Bill may turn, if Mary doesn't mind. Be careful of my
fern, Jack!" And then, in German: "Aren't they lovely in all the grass
and flowers, John?"
"Margaret!" breathed Mrs. Frary. "Poor, dear Margaret Kirby!"
"I hope they don't go by this way," whispered Mrs. Dunning, after an
astounded second. "One's been so rude--don't you know--forgetting her!"
"She probably won't know us," Mrs. Frary whispered back, adjusting her
veil in a stealthy way.
Mrs. Frary was right. The Kirbys presently passed with only a cursory
glance at the swathed occupants of the motor-car. They were laughing
like a lot of children as they scrambled through the hedge. John--a
big, broad John, as strong and brisk as a boy--carried a tiny barefoot
girl on his shoulder. Margaret, her beauty more startling than ever
under the sweep of a gypsy hat; her splendid figure a little broader,
but still magnificent under the cotton gown; her arms full of flowers
and ferns, was escorted by two more children, sturdy little boys, who
doubled and redoubled on their tracks like puppies. The tiny barefoot
girl, in her father's
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