the fishes far down in the pool, and the frogs, and only that morning a red-bird had lighted on his head to drink.
"How strange," the girl was saying, "to have a garden here!"
"It was because of the pool," Meriweather told her.
"The springs feed it—and so your mother had the walk made of flagstones to lead down the hill."
"She had a garden at home," Hildegarde said.
"Things always bloomed for her. The day of her funeral there was a white rose on a bush, and Crispin picked it for me as we passed through."
It was the first time she had spoken his name to any of them. She was scarcely conscious that she had spoken it now.
"Crispin?" Meriweather asked.
"Crispin Harlowe. A friend of mine at home."
"But this is your home."
"Is it? Or is it just a stopping place?"
"What makes you say that?".
"I haven't any roots—not far-down ones like those that hold me to the farm."
"But you don't belong to the farm. You belong here."
"Do I? I doubted it last night. Mother couldn't fit herself in—perhaps I can't."
"But if you should not stay, where would you go?"
She was silent, seeing Crispin as he had talked to her under the sunset sky—"My heart is waiting."
Meriweather, watching her, was aware of something he had not seen before, a sort of inner radiance. He wondered what had lighted her like that.
