At the girl’s approach, the elder woman rose from her stooping posture, and came forward, wearing a frown, which, after the first minute, Molly saw was directed at the sunlight, not at herself.  Kesiah’s long, sallow face under the hard little curls of her false front, had never appeared more grotesque than it did in the midst of the delicate spring landscape.  Every fragile blossom, every young leaf, every blade of grass, flung an insult at her as she stood there frowning fiercely at the sunbeams.  Yet only five minutes before she had suffered a sharp recrudescence of soul—­of that longing for happiness which is a part of the resurrection of the spring, and which may survive not only the knowledge of its own fruitlessness, but a belief in the existence of the very happiness for which it longs.  All the unlived romance in her heart had come to life with the young green around her.  Middle-age had not deadened, it had merely dulled her.  For the pang of desire is not, after all, the divine prerogative of youth, nor has it even a conscious relation to the possibility of fulfilment.  Her soul looked out of her eyes while she gazed over the azalea in her hand—­yet, in spite of the songs of the poets, the soul in her eyes did not make them beautiful.

“I came down with Jonathan, Molly,” she said.  “You will doubtless find him at the brook.”  For an instant she hesitated in confusion and then added hurriedly, “We were speaking about you.”

“Were you?” asked Molly a little awkwardly, for Kesiah always embarrassed her.

“We were both saying how much we admired your devotion to your grandfather.  One rarely finds such attachment in the young to the old.”

“I have always loved him better than anybody except mother.”

“I am sure you have, and it speaks very well for both of you.  We are all much interested in you, Molly.”

“It’s kind of you to think about me,” answered Molly, and her voice was constrained as it had been when she spoke in the library at Jordan’s Journey.

“We feel a great concern for your future,” said Kesiah.  “Whatever we can do to help you, we shall do very gladly.  I always felt a peculiar pity and sympathy for your mother.”  Her voice choked, for it was, perhaps, as spontaneous an expression of her emotions as she had ever permitted herself.

“Thank you, ma’am,” replied Molly simply, and the title of respect to which Reuben had trained her dropped unconsciously from her lips.  She honestly liked Kesiah, though, in common with the rest of her little world, she had fallen into the habit of regarding her as a person whom it was hardly worth one’s while to consider.  Mrs. Gay had so completely effaced her sister that the rough edges of Kesiah’s character were hardly visible beneath the little lady’s enveloping charm.

“It is natural that you should have felt bitterly toward your father,” began the older woman again in a trembling voice, “but I hope you realize that the thought of his wrong to you and your mother saddened his last hours.”