I mean, where it stands. The quaintest bit, a genuine antique! And
holding the stuffiest collection of old books, too! I believe they may
be valuable, out-of-print, early editions. If," her voice faltered
wistfully, "if Father ever forgives me for being happy with Ethan, and
comes to visit us, he would love every musty old volume. Do you think
Mother and he ever will, Cousin Roger?"

"I am sure they will, Phil. Feuds and tragic parents are out of date.
They must adjust themselves gradually when they realize Vere
is--himself. Before you go upstairs to him, will you tell me where to
find that bookcase?"

"Now? Why, of course!"

She led me across the hall to her sewing room. I cannot say that she
sewed there very much, but she had chosen that title in preference to
boudoir or study as more becoming a housewife. She had assembled here a
spinning-wheel from the attic, some samplers, a Hepplewhite sewing-table
and chairs discovered about the house. Her canaries' cage hung above a
great punch-bowl of flowered ware in which she kept gold-fish. A pipe of
Vere's balanced beside the bowl showed that his masculine presence was
not excluded.

In a corner stood the bookcase. Phillida pulled the chain of a lamp
bright under a shade of peacock chintz, and watched me stoop to look at
the faded bindings.

"Thank you, Phil," I said. "It may take some time to find the book I
want. You had better hurry back to bed before Vere comes hunting for a
missing wife."

"Are you going to stay and hunt for the book tonight, then?"

"Unless you are afraid I shall disturb your canaries?"

She did not laugh. Drawing nearer, she stroked my sleeve with a
caressing doubt and remonstrance.

"But you have not been to bed at all, and soon it will be morning! Do
you have to write your lovely music at night, Cousin Roger? You have
been growing thin and tired, this summer. Are you quite well? You are so
good that you should be happy, but--are you?"

"Good, Phil?" I wondered, touched. "Why, how did your lazy,
tune-spinning, frivolous cousin get that reputation in this branch of
the family?"

"You are so kind," she said simply. "Ethan says so. You know, Cousin
Roger, that I was over-educated in my childhood; my brain choked with
little, little stupid knowledge that hardly matters at all. We went to
church Sundays because that was the correct thing to do. But I was
almost a heathen when Ethan married me. He doesn't trouble about church.
He doesn't t