So, Mistress Nancy was the prey to indefinable anxieties and vague forebodings.  Everybody had noticed her sadness.  Mr. Campbell had spoken of it with concern and had promised to take them all on another trip to the mountains.

“The heat is too much for the child,” he had remarked to his cousin.  “I didn’t realize she was such a fragile little thing.  Even Mary Price seems more robust.”

“She never was a fragile little thing before, Duncan,” answered Miss Campbell.  “I always thought that Billie and Nancy had unlimited endurance.  The other girls are much more delicate.  Do you suppose Nancy has anything on her mind?”

Mr. Campbell shook his head.  It was impossible for him to think that any of those light-hearted creatures could have troubles.  They had nothing to think about but their own pleasures; nothing to do but enjoy the house and the garden, the tea parties and excursions.  Their happy laughter and gay chatter, floating to him through the open window of his library did not carry a single note of sadness; for Nancy had tried to cover her unhappiness under a cloak of forced gaiety; but she could not hide her tragic little face, nor the pathetic droop of her lips and the circles under her eyes.

“I can never look Billie in the face again,” she had said to herself a hundred times.  “I almost feel as if I had murdered somebody and hidden the body away.  Nobody knows about the letter but it’s just as bad as if they did.  I believe I couldn’t be more miserable if I had sent it to Billie.  Thinking is just as bad as saying things out loud, and writing them seems to make it even worse.”

Furthermore, Onoye had been acting very strangely toward Nancy lately.  Twice she had come and stood before the American girl with downcast eyes and twice tried to say something, failed and slipped quietly away.

On this wonderful Sunday morning, when the world seemed indescribably fresh and fair after the recent rains, only Nancy was sad.  Mary, who had blossomed into a flower herself in the soft warm air of Japan, was fairly dancing along the walk.

“There is so much to do,” she cried.  “I haven’t a moment to spare.  The red lilies are in bloom.  They all live together in a place near the old shrine.  Saiki says if the weather keeps on like this the lotus flowers in the pond will open.  Over against the old south wall there is a climbing rose bush that is a perfect marvel.  You see, Saiki tells me all the secrets of the garden.  He and I are the most devoted friends.”

The girls smiled indulgently at Mary, who seemed to them to have developed in a few weeks from a timid, shrinking little soul with a tinge of sadness in her nature into the most joyous being.

“Go on and tell us some more,” put in Elinor.  “I like to hear all this garden gossip.  You’ll be hearing the secret the white rose whispered to the red next; and how the sensitive plant shrank when she heard the news, and the lilies shut up—­”