again. She did not mention Byron Kasson in her letter to her mother nor, conscious of this fact, could she bring herself to do so.
It was the middle of September; the sky was overcast with clouds and a slight drizzle was falling. Ollie had not yet returned from the office. Mary, alone, decided that a walk would agree admirably with her mood. Slipping a blue jersey and a raincoat over her woollen frock and pulling a tam-o'shanter over her head, she started forth. The wind had risen and the raindrops increased in size. They beat against her cheeks and wet her hair and ankles. Tingling with health, she was grateful for this attention from the elements.
It had been, she reflected, a pleasant week. She had principally been occupied in borrowing from several private collections specimens of primitive African sculpture and she had been astonishingly successful—lucky, she called it—in unearthing worthy examples, representing the creative skill of a variety of tribes from different localities in Africa. Moreover, early dates were more or less reasonably ascribed to some of them. One strangely beautiful head was said to have been executed in the tenth century, or even earlier, while a box, exquisite in proportion and design, was said to have been created in the fourteenth century. Mary was beginning to recognize the feel of the older work, the soft, smooth texture, like that of the best Chinese porcelains, of the wood, so different from that of the
