CHAPTER III.

Backward and forward, from pantry to sideboard, from sideboard to china closet, flitted Pocahontas Mason setting the table for breakfast.  Deftly she laid out the pretty mats on the shining mahogany, arranged the old-fashioned blue cups and saucers, and placed the plates and napkins.  She sang at her work in a low, clear voice, more sweet than powerful, and all that her hands found to do was done rapidly and skillfully, with firm, accustomed touches, and an absence of jar and clatter.  In the center of the table stood a corpulent Wedgwood pitcher, filled with geraniums and roses, to which the girl’s fingers wandered lovingly from time to time, in the effort to coax each blossom into the position in which it would make the bravest show.  On one corner, near the waiter, stood a housewifely little basket of keys, through the handle of which was thrust a fresh handkerchief newly shaken out.

When all the arrangements about the table had been completed, Pocahontas turned her attention to the room, giving it those manifold touches which, from a lady’s fingers, can make even a plain apartment look gracious and homelike.  Times had changed with the Masons, and many duties formerly delegated to servants now fell naturally to the daughter of the house.  Perhaps the change was an improvement:  Berkeley Mason, the young lady’s brother, maintained that it was.

Having finished her work, Pocahontas crossed the room to one of the tall, old-fashioned windows, and pushed open the half-shut blinds, letting a flood of sunshine and morning freshness into the room.  Under the window stood an ottoman covered with drab cloth, on which the fingers of some dead and gone Mason had embroidered a dingy wreath of roses and pansies.  Pocahontas knelt on it, resting her arms on the lofty window-sill, and gazed out over the lawn, and enjoyed the dewy buoyance of the air.  The September sunshine touched with golden glory the bronze abundance of her hair, which a joyous, rollicking breeze, intoxicated with dew and the breath of roses, tangled and tumbled into a myriad witcheries of curl and crinkle.  The face, glorified by this bright aureole, was pure and handsome, patrician in every line and curve, from the noble forehead, with its delicate brown brows, to the well-cut chin, which spoke eloquently of breadth of character and strength of will.  The eyes were gray, and in them lay the chief charm of the face, for their outlook was as honest and fearless as that of a child—­true eyes they were, fit windows for a brave, true soul.