"The dear old thing," said Mrs. Paige, smiling as she moved among
the shrubs.  For a full minute her sensitive lips remained tenderly
curved as she stood considering the agricultural problems before
her.  Then she settled down again, naively--like a child on its
haunches--and continued to mix nourishment for the roses.

Camilla, lounging sideways on her own veranda window sill, rested
her head against the frame, alternately blinking down at the pretty
widow through sleepy eyes, and patting her lips to control the
persistent yawns that tormented her.

"I had a horrid dream, too," she said, "about the 'Seven Sisters.'
I was Pluto to your Diavoline, and Philip Berkley was a phantom
that grinned at everybody and rattled the bones; and I waked in a
dreadful fright to hear uncle's spurred boots overhead, and that
horrid noisy old sabre of his banging the best furniture.

"Then this morning just before sunrise he came into my bedroom,
hair and moustache on end, and in full uniform, and attempted to
read the Declaration of Independence to me--or maybe it was the
Constitution--I don't remember--but I began to cry, and that always
sends him off."

Ailsa's quick laugh and the tenderness of her expression were her
only comments upon the doings of Josiah Lent, lately captain,
United States dragoons.

Camilla yawned again, rose, and, arranging her spreading white
skirts, seated herself on her veranda steps in full sunshine.