“Old friend of my wife’s, sort of half-cousin several-times removed, schoolmates in France together, the kind of old family friend who comes and goes in the house at will,” said Neale rapidly.  “Cultivated, artistic, and so on.”

“Oh, Neale, how slightingly you put it!” cried Marise under her breath.  “She’s made herself into one of the rarest and most finished creations!”

Neale went on rapidly, in a low tone as the newcomer stepped slowly down the path, “She toils not, neither does she spin . . . doesn’t have to.  Highbrow, very, and yet stylish, very!  Most unusual combination.”  He added as final information, “Spinster, by conviction,” as he stepped forward to greet her.

The other two men stood up to be presented to the newcomer, who, making everything to Marise’s eyes seem rough and countrified, advanced towards them, self-possessed, and indifferent to all those eyes turned on her.  In her gleaming, supple dress of satin-like ivory jersey, she looked some tiny, finished, jewel-object, infinitely breakable, at which one ought only to look if it were safely behind glass.

“There is someone of Marsh’s own world, the ‘great world’ he speaks of,” thought Marise.  She was not aware of any wistfulness in her recognition of this fact, but she was moved to stand closer to her husband, and once as she moved about, setting the table, to lay her fingers for an instant on his hand.

“We’re going to have ice-cream, Eugenia,” announced Paul, leaning on the arm of her chair after she and all the others were seated again.

“That’s good news,” she said equably.  She laid a small, beautiful hand on the child’s shoulder, and with a smooth, imperceptible movement, set him a little further from her.  Paul did not observe this manoeuver, but his mother did, with an inward smile.  “Paul, don’t hang on Eugenia like that,” she called to him.

“But she smells so sweet!” protested the little boy.

Mr. Welles held out a sympathizing hand and drew the child to him.  He too had seen that gesture.

“Come here, all you little folks,” ordered Marise, now seriously beginning to serve the meal, “and start waiting on the table.”

“Cold lamb!” cried Cousin Hetty with enthusiasm.  “I’m so glad.  Agnes won’t touch mutton or lamb.  She says they taste so like a sheep.  And so we don’t often have it.”

“Paul, can you be trusted to pour the hot chocolate?” asked his mother.  “No, Neale, don’t get up.  I want to see if the children can’t do it all.”

* * * * *

From where she sat at the foot of the table, she directed the operations.  The children stepped about, serious, responsible, their rosy faces translucent in the long, searching, level rays sent up by the sun, low in The Notch.  Dishes clicked lightly, knives and forks jingled, cups were set back with little clinking noises on saucers.  All these indoor sounds were oddly diminished and unresonant under the open sky, just as the chatting, laughing flow of the voices, even though it rose at times to bursts of mirth which the children’s shouts made noisy, never drowned out the sweet, secret talk of the brook to itself.