But the pigeons soon began to fly less frequently.  And finally they gave out.  And now she must take nearly all her cartridges home!  Mrs. Meredith would think her ignorant, therefore she would think her common.  If Pansy had only known what divine dulness, what ambrosial stupidity, often reclines on those Olympian heights called society!

As last she rose.  Neither had mentioned Dent’s name, though each had been thinking of him all the time.  Not a word had been spoken to indicate the recognition of a relationship which one of them so desired and the other so dreaded.  Pansy might merely have hurried over to ask Mrs. Meredith for the loan of an ice-cream freezer or for a setting of eggs.  On the mother’s part this silence was kindly meant:  she did not think it right to take for granted what might never come to pass.  Uppermost in her mind was the cruelty of accepting Pansy as her daughter-in-law this morning with the possibility of rejecting her afterward.

As Pansy walked reluctantly out into the hall, she stopped with a deep wish in her candid eyes.

“Oh, Mrs. Meredith, I should so much like to see the portrait of Dent’s father:  he has often spoken to me about It.”

Mrs. Meredith led her away in silence to where the portrait hung, and the two stood looking at it side by side.  She resisted a slight impulse to put her arm around the child.  When they returned to the front of the house, Pansy turned: 

“Do you think you will ever love me?”

The carriage was at the door.  “You must not walk,” said Mrs. Meredith, “the sun is too hot now.”

As Pansy stepped into the carriage, she cast a suspicious glance at the cushions:  Meredith upholstery was not to be trusted, and she seated herself warily.

Mrs. Meredith put her hand through the window:  “You must come to see me soon again, Pansy.  I am a poor visitor, but I shall try to call on you in a few days.”

She went back to her seat on the veranda.

It has been said that her insight into goodness was her strength; she usually had a way of knowing at once, as regards the character of people, what she was ever to know at all.  Her impressions of Pansy unrolled themselves disconnectedly: 

“She makes mistakes, but she does not know how to do wrong.  Guile is not in her.  She is so innocent that she does not realize sometimes the peril of her own words.  She is proud—­a great deal prouder than Dent.  To her, life means work and duty; more than that, it means love.  She is ambitious, and ambition, in her case, would be indispensable.  She did not claim Dent:  I appreciate that.  She is a perfectly brave girl, and it is cowardice that makes so many women hypocrites.  She will improve—­she improved while she was here.  But oh, everything else!  No figure, no beauty, no grace, no tact, no voice, no hands, no anything that is so much needed!  Dent says there are cold bodies which he calls planets without