ill sometimes
occur to the mind quite apart from their inspired context, and bearing
a totally different meaning from that which they primarily bear, these
words came to Jane: "For He is our peace, Who hath made both one, and
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ... that He
might reconcile both ... by the cross." "Ah, dear Christ!" she
whispered. "If Thy cross could do this for Jew and Gentile, may not my
boy's heavy cross, so bravely borne, do it for him and for me? So shall
we come at last, indeed, to 'kiss the cross.'"

The breakfast gong boomed through the house. Simpson loved gongs. He
considered them "Haristocratic." He always gave full measure.

Nurse Rosemary went down to breakfast.

Garth came in, through the French window, humming "The thousand
beauties that I know so well." He was in his gayest, most inconsequent
mood. He had picked a golden rosebud in the conservatory and wore it in
his buttonhole. He carried a yellow rose in his hand.

"Good day, Miss Rosemary," he said. "What a May Day! Simpson and I were
up with the lark; weren't we, Simpson? Poor Simpson felt like a sort of
'Queen of the May,' when my electric bell trilled in his room, at 5
A.M. But I couldn't stay in bed. I woke with my
something-is-going-to-happen feeling; and when I was a little chap and
woke with that, Margery used to say: 'Get up quickly then, Master
Garth, and it will happen all the sooner.' You ask her if she didn't,
Simpson. Miss Gray, did you ever learn: 'If you're waking call me
early, call me early, mother dear'? I always hated that young woman! I
should think, in her excited state, she would have been waking long
before her poor mother, who must have been worn to a perfect rag,
making all the hussy's May Queen-clothes, overnight."

Simpson had waited to guide him to his place at the table. Then he
removed the covers, and left the room.

As soon as he had closed the door behind him, Garth leaned forward, and
with unerring accuracy laid the opening rose upon Nurse Rosemary's
plate.

"Roses for Rosemary," he said. "Wear it, if you are sure the young man
would not object. I have been thinking about him and the aunt. I wish
you could ask them both here, instead of going away on Thursday. We
would have the 'maddest, merriest time!' I would play with the aunt,
while you had it out with the young man. And I could easily keep the
aunt away from nooks and corners, because my hearing is sharper than
any aunt