“It will be bright to-morrow!” Julia thought, resting her forehead against the glass.  She was weary and spent; a measureless exhaustion seemed to enfold her.  Yet under it all there glowed some new spark of warm reassurance and certainty.  “Thank God, I see my way clear at last!” she said softly.

CHAPTER VII

The kitchen in the old Cox house formed a sort of one-story annex behind the building, and had windows on three sides, so that on a certain exquisite morning in March, four years later, sunlight flooded the two eastern windows and fell in clear squares of brightness on the checkered blue-and-white linoleum on the floor.  There were thin muslin sash curtains at these windows, and white shades had been drawn down to meet them.  Some trailing English ivy made a delicate tracery in dark green beside one window, and two or three potted begonias on the sill lifted transparent trembling blooms to the sun.  The rest of the large room was in keeping with this cheerful bit of detail.  There was a shining gas stove beside the shining coal range, and a picturesque bit of colour in the blue kettles and copper casseroles that stood in a row on the shelves above the range.  A pine cupboard had been painted white, and held orderly rows of blue plates and cups; there were several white-painted chairs, and two tables.  One of these was pushed against the west wall, and was of pine wood white from scrubbing; the other stood on a blue rag rug by the eastern windows, and was covered by a fringed tablecloth in white and blue.  Near the outer door, with a window above it, was a white-enamelled sink in a bright frame of hanging small utensils.

The sunlight twinkled here and there on a polished surface, and flung a trembling bright reflection on the ceiling from the brass faucets of the sink.  A clock on the wall struck seven.

As the last stroke sounded, Julia Studdiford quietly opened the hall door and stepped into the kitchen.  She softly closed the door behind her, and went to another door, at which she paused for a few seconds with her head bent as if listening.  Evidently satisfied that no one stirred in the bedroom beyond the door, she set briskly if noiselessly about her preparations for breakfast.

These involved the tying on of a crisp checked apron, and various negotiations with a large enamelled coffee pot, an egg, and the dark grounds that sent a heartening odour of coffee through the room.  Bread was sliced and trimmed for toast with delightful evenness and swiftness, a double boiler of oatmeal was lifted from the fireless cooker, and the ice box made to furnish more eggs and a jar of damp, firm butter.