By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves.  The start had been a reminiscence of Sylvia’s, induced by the slow fall of golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the lake in the midst of Marie Antoinette’s hamlet.  They stopped on an outrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificially rural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in a fascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves.  There was not a breath of wind.  The leaves detached themselves from the tree with no wrench.  They loosened their hold gradually, gradually, and finally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graves with a dreamy content.

“I never happened to see that effect before,” said Page.  “I supposed leaves were detached only by wind.  It’s astonishingly peaceful, isn’t it?”

“I saw it once before,” said Sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiseless arabesques traced by the leaves in their fall—­“at home in La Chance.  I’ll never forget it.”  She spoke in a low tone as though not to break the charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for the incident, she went on, almost in a murmur:  “It isn’t a story you could possibly understand.  You’ve never been poor.  But I’ll tell you if you like.  I’ve talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people we know—­did I ever mention Cousin Parnelia?  She’s a distant cousin of my mother’s, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in a train-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since.  She has always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hat and everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her.  The Spiritualists got hold of her then, and she’s been one herself for ever so long—­table-rapping—­planchette-writing—­all the horrid rest of it, and she makes a little money by being a “medium” for ignorant people.  But she hardly earns enough that way to keep her from starving, and Mother has for ever so long helped her out.

“Well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her—­two hundred and twenty dollars.  It was just a two-roomed cottage, but it would be a roof over her head at least.  She is getting old and ought to have something to fall back on.  Mother called us all together and said this would be a way to help provide for Cousin Parnelia’s old age.  Father never could bear her (he’s so hard on ignorant, superstitious people), but he always does what Mother thinks best, so he said he’d give up the new typewriter he’d been hoping to buy.  Mother gave up her chicken money she’d been putting by for some new rose-bushes, and she loves her roses too!  Judith gave what she’d earned picking raspberries, and I—­oh, how I hated to do it! but I was ashamed not to—­I gave what I’d saved up for my autumn suit.