Very far away, from somewhere in the harbour, a deep sound jarred
the silence.  Ailsa raised her head, needle suspended, listened for
a moment, then resumed her embroidery with an unconscious sigh.

Her sister-in-law glanced sideways at her.

"I was thinking of Major Anderson, Celia," she said absently.

"So was I, dear.  And of those who must answer for his gove'nment's
madness,--God fo'give them."

There was no more said about the Major or his government.  After a
few moments Ailsa leaned back dreamily, her gaze wandering around
the sunny walls of the room.  In Ailsa Paige's eyes there was
always a gentle caress for homely things.  Just now they caressed
the pictures of "Night" and "Morning," hanging there in their round
gilt frames; the window boxes where hyacinths blossomed; the
English ivy festooned to frame the window beside her
sister-in-law's writing-desk; the melancholy engraving over the
fireplace--"The Motherless Bairn"--a commonplace picture which
harrowed her, but which nobody thought of discarding in a day when
even the commonplace was uncommon.

She smiled in amused reminiscence of the secret tears she had wept
over absurd things--of the funerals held for birds found dead--of
the "Three Grains of Corn" poem which, when a child, elicited from
her howls of anguish.

Little golden flashes of recollection lighted the idle path as her
thoughts wandered along hazy ways which led back to her own nursery
days; and she rested there, in memory, dreaming through the
stillness of the afternoon.