The men turned away to get their hats.  She settled the folds of her heavy black silk mantilla more closely about her head, glancing at herself in the mirror.  She smiled back with sympathy at the smiling face she saw there.  It was not so often since the war that she saw her own face lighted with mirth.

Gravely, something deep on the edge of the unconscious called up to her, “You are talking and feeling like a coquette.”

She was indignant at this, up in arms to defend human freedom.  “Oh, what a hateful, little-villagey, prudish, nasty-minded idea!” she cried to herself.  “Who would have thought that narrowness and priggishness could rub off on a person’s mind like that!  Mrs. Bayweather could have thought that!  Mercy!  As if one civilized being can’t indulge in a light touch or two in human intercourse with another!”

The two men were ready now and all the party of six jostled each other cheerfully as they went out of the front door.  Paul had secured the hand of old Mr. Welles and led him along with an air of proprietary affection.

“Don’t you turn out the lamp, or lock the door, or anything?” asked the old man, now.

“Oh no, we won’t be gone long.  It’s not more than half a mile to the Powers’.  There’s not a soul in the valley who would think of going in and rummaging . . . let alone taking anything.  And we never have tramps.  We are too far from the railroad,” said Marise.

“Well!” exclaimed the other, looking back as they went down the path, “it certainly looks queer to me, the door standing open into this black night, and the light shining in that empty room.”

Elly looked back too.  She slipped her hand out of her mother’s and ran towards the house.  She darted up to the door and stood there, poised like a swallow, looking in.

“What does she want?” asked Mr. Welles with the naive conviction of the elderly bachelor that the mother must know everything in the child’s mind.

“I don’t know,” admitted Marise.  “Nobody ever knows exactly what is in Elly’s mind when she does things.  Maybe she is looking to see that her kitten is safe.”

The little girl ran back to them.

“What did you want, dear?” asked her mother.

“I just wanted to look at it again,” said Elly.  “I like it, like that, all quiet, with nobody in it.  The furniture looks as though it were having a good rest from us.”

“Oh, listen to the frogs!” screamed Mark, out of the darkness where he had run to join Toucle.

Elly and Paul sprang forward to join their little brother.

* * * * *

“What in the world are we going to see?” asked Marsh.  “You forget you haven’t given us the least idea.”

“You are going to see,” Marise set herself to amuse them, “you’re going to see a rite of the worship of beauty which Ashley, Vermont, has created out of its own inner consciousness.”