“Saves her a deal of talking,” said Mr. Wholesome, “and thinking.  Any words would serve her as well.  Might have said, ‘Topsail halyards,’ all the same.”

“Richard!” said Mistress White.  Mistress Priscilla White was her name.

“Perchance thee would pardon me,” said Mr. Wholesome.

“I wonder,” said a third voice in the window, “does the nice old dame know what color has the clover? and does she remember fields of clover—­pink among the green?”

“Has thee a four-leaved clover?” re-echoed the voice feebly from between the windows.

The man who was curious as to the dame’s remembrances was a small stout person whose arms and legs did not seem to belong to him, and whose face was strangely gnarled, like the odd face a boy might carve on a hickory-nut, but withal a visage pleasant and ruddy.

“That,” said Mistress White as he moved away, “is Mr. Schmidt—­an old boarder with some odd ways of his own which we mostly forgive.  A good man if it were not for his pipe,” she added demurely—­“altogether a good man.”

“With or without his pipe,” said Mr. Wholesome.

“Richard!” returned our hostess, with a half smile.

“Without his pipe,” he added; and the unseen demons twitched at the corners of his mouth anew.

Altogether, these seemed to me droll people, they said so little, and, saving the small German, were so serenely grave.  I suppose that first evening must have made a deep mark on my memory, for to this day I recall it with the clearness of a picture still before my eyes.  Between the windows sat the old dame with hands quiet on her lap now that the twilight had grown deeper—­a silent, gray Quaker sphinx, with one only remembrance out of all her seventy years of life.  In the open window sat as in a frame the daughter, a woman of some twenty-five years, rosy yet as only a Quakeress can be when rebel Nature flaunts on the soft cheek the colors its owner may not wear on her gray dress.  The outline was of a face clearly cut and noble, as if copied from a Greek gem—­a face filled with a look of constant patience too great perhaps for one woman’s share, with a certain weariness in it also at times, yet cheerful too, and even almost merry at times—­the face of one more thoughtful of others than herself, and, despite toil and sordid cares, a gentlewoman, as was plain to see.  The shaft of light from the window in which she sat broadened into the room, and faded to shadow in far corners among chairs with claw toes and shining mahogany tables—­the furniture of that day, with a certain flavor about it of elegance, reflecting the primness and solidness of the owners.  I wonder if to-day our furniture represents us too in any wise?  At least it will not through the generations to follow us:  of that we may be sure.  In the little garden, with red graveled walks between rows of box, walked to and fro Mr. Schmidt, smoking his meerschaum—­a rare sight in those days,