nt when the Common came in view, when through
the rows of elms the lineaments of those old houses rose before her,
lineaments seemingly long familiar, as of old and trusted friends, and
yet ever stirring new harmonies and new visions. Here, in their midst,
she belonged, and here, had the world been otherwise ordained, she might
have lived on in one continuous, shining spring. At the corner of the
Common, foursquare, ample, painted a straw colour trimmed with white,
with its high chimneys and fan-shaped stairway window, its balustraded
terrace porch open to the sky, was the eighteenth century mansion
occupied by Dr. Ledyard. What was the secret of its flavour? And how
account for the sense of harmony inspired by another dwelling, built
during the term of the second Adams, set in a frame of maples and
shining white in the morning sun? Its curved portico was capped by a
wrought-iron railing, its long windows were touched with purple, and
its low garret--set like a deckhouse on the wide roof--suggested hidden
secrets of the past. Here a Motley or a Longfellow might have dwelt, a
Bryant penned his "Thanatopsis." Farther on, chequered by shade, stood
the quaint brick row of professors' houses, with sloping eaves and
recessed entrances of granite--a subject for an old English print....
Along the border of the Common were interspersed among the ancient
dormitories and halls the new and dignified buildings of plum-coloured
brick that still preserved the soul of Silliston. And to it the soul of
Janet responded.

In the late afternoon, when her tasks were finished, Janet would cross
the Common to Mrs. Maturin's--a dwelling typical of the New England of
the past, with the dimensions of a cottage and something of the dignity
of a mansion. Fluted white pilasters adorned the corners, the windows
were protected by tiny eaves, the roof was guarded by a rail; the
classically porched entrance was approached by a path between high
clipped hedges of hemlock; and through the library, on the right, you
reached the flagged terrace beside a garden, rioting in the carnival
colours of spring. By September it would have changed. For there is one
glory of the hyacinth, of the tulip and narcissus and the jonquil, and
another of the Michaelmas daisy and the aster.

Insall was often there, and on Saturdays and Sundays he took Mrs.
Maturin and Janet on long walks into the country. There were afternoons
when the world was flooded with silver light, whe