ran
towards the house. She darted up to the door and stood there, poised
like a swallow, looking in.

"What does she want?" asked Mr. Welles with the naive conviction of the
elderly bachelor that the mother must know everything in the child's
mind.

"I don't know," admitted Marise. "Nobody ever knows exactly what is in
Elly's mind when she does things. Maybe she is looking to see that her
kitten is safe."

The little girl ran back to them.

"What did you want, dear?" asked her mother.

"I just wanted to look at it again," said Elly. "I _like_ it, like that,
all quiet, with nobody in it. The furniture looks as though it were
having a good rest from us."

"Oh, listen to the frogs!" screamed Mark, out of the darkness where he
had run to join Toucle.

Elly and Paul sprang forward to join their little brother.

* * * * *

"What in the world are we going to see?" asked Marsh. "You forget you
haven't given us the least idea."

"You are going to see," Marise set herself to amuse them, "you're going
to see a rite of the worship of beauty which Ashley, Vermont, has
created out of its own inner consciousness."

She had succeeded in amusing at least one of them, for at this Mr. Marsh
gave her the not disagreeable shock of that singular, loud laugh of his.
It was in conversation like something-or-other in the orchestra . . . the
cymbals, that must be it . . . made you jump, and tingle with answering
vibrations.

"Ashleyians in the role of worshipers of beauty!" he cried, out of the
soft, moist, dense darkness about them.

"None so blind as those who won't see," she persisted. "Just because
they go to it in overalls and gingham aprons, instead of peplums and
sandals."

"What _is_ a night-blooming cereal?" asked Mr. Welles, patient of the
verbose by-play of his companions that never got anybody anywhere.

What an old dear Mr. Welles was! thought Marise. It was like having the
sweetest old uncle bestowed on you as a pendant to dear Cousin Hetty.

". . . -eus, not -eal," murmured Marsh; "not that I know any more than you
what it is."

Marise felt suddenly wrought upon by the mildness of the spring air,
the high, tuneful shrillness of the frogs' voices, the darkness, sweet
and thick. She would not amuse them; no, she would really tell them,
move them. She chose the deeper intonations of her voice, she selected
her words with care, she played upon her own feeling, quickening it into
g