She ended on her high laugh and rolled over a little woolly puppy that lay in her lap, burying her long fingers in its coat.  She was perched upon a grassy slope like some vast moth that had alighted there, her pale skirts spread, a white cashmere shawl swathed about her shoulders, her golden head tipped back on her full throat.  Over her, like a swaying flower, a tiny parasol reared on a long tasselled stalk, held in Killigrew’s hand as he lounged beside her.  He let his eyes run over her now, tipping the parasol to one side so that at his pleasure the late sunlight should touch her hair and her still flawless skin.  She knew she could stand the test, and stayed a moment before motioning him to tip the parasol back again.

“It seems to me Archelaus is going a lot to the mill,” observed Killigrew idly, and more for the purpose of saying something than because he really thought so.  “I ran into him there the other day when I was doing my sketch of it.”

A short hush, pregnant with thought, followed on his words.  To Boase and Vassie—­those two so different beings—­came the swift reflection “That would not be at all a bad thing.  It would remove a danger.”

Killigrew was interested, as an onlooker, in the idea of the alliance his own words had suggested.  Ishmael felt an irrational little pang.  Phoebe’s smiles, her little friendliness, had always belonged to him—­Archelaus would crush them as big fingers rub the powder off a butterfly’s wings....  If he and Archelaus had been more truly brothers it would have been a very nice arrangement ... little Phoebe would make a sweeter sister in some ways than the imperious Vassie....

“This puppy is for Phoebe,” cried Vassie, breaking into a hurried speech; “it’s been promised her a long time.  She’s so fond of pets.”

This was true.  Phoebe’s maternal instincts made her love to have a soft, helpless little lamb or calf dependent on her; but it seemed her instinct was oddly animal in quality, for when the creature on which she had lavished so much care grew to sturdiness she saw it go to the butcher’s knife with unimpaired cheerfulness and turned her attentions to the next weakling.  It was a standing joke against Phoebe that she called all her hens by name and nursed them from the egg up, only to inform you brightly at some meal that it was Henrietta, or Garibaldi, or whatever luckless bird it might be, that you were devouring.

“If you like I’ll take that puppy over to the mill now, if you’ll see Wanda doesn’t follow to bring it back,” observed Ishmael, getting to his feet, “and then perhaps I can find out something about this bush-beating scare.  If Archelaus is there—­”

“Be careful, Ishmael,” said the Parson quietly.

“Oh, I’ll keep my temper, or try to.  Coming with me, Joe?”

Vassie sat nonchalantly picking blades of grass.  She would sooner never have seen Killigrew again than have asked him to stay with her, even than have suggested, with apparent carelessness, some plan that should keep him.  But she waited with throbbing heart for his answer.