Revivw of Reviews, 119/06. 



In the Days of the Qomet. 



299 



Her dress marked the end of her transition. 

 Can I recall it? 



Not, I am afraid, in the terms a woman would 

 use. But her bright brown hair, which had once 

 flowed down her back in a jolly pigtail tied with 

 a bit of scarlet ribbon, was now caught into an 

 intricacy of pretty curves above her little ear and 

 cheek and the soft, long lines of her neck; her 

 white dress had descended to her feet; her slender 

 waist, which had once been a mere geographical 

 expression, an imaginary line like the equator, was 

 now a thing of flexible beauty. A year ago she had 

 been a pretty girl's face sticking out from a little 

 unimpoitant frock that was carried upon an ex- 

 tremely active and efficient pair of brown-stockinged 

 legs. , Now there was coming a strange new body 

 that flowed beneath her clothes with a sinuous in- 

 sistence. Every movement, and particularly the 

 novel droop of her hand and arm to the unaccus- 

 tomed skirts she gathered about her, and a grace- 

 ful, forward inclination that had come to her, called 

 softly to my eyes. A very fine scarf — I suppose you 

 would call it a scarf — of green gossamer, that some 

 new-wakened instinct had told her to fling about her 

 shoulders, clung now closely to the young undula- 

 tions of her body and now streamed fluttering out 

 for a moment in a breath of wind, and like some 

 shy, independent tentacle with a secret to impart, 

 came into momentary contact with my ann. 



She caught it back and reproved it. 



We went through the green gate in the high 

 garden wall. I held it open for her to pass through ; 

 for this was one of my restricted stock of stiff polite- 

 nesses, and then for a second she was near touching 

 me. So we came to the trim array of flower Lieds 

 near the head gardener's cottage and the vistas of 

 " glass " on our left. We walked between the box 

 edgings and beds of begonias, and into the shadow 

 of a yew hedge within twenty yards of that very 

 pond with the goldfish, at whose brim we had 

 plighted our vows, and so we came to the wistaria- 

 smothered porch. 



The door was wide opened, and 'she walked in 

 before me. " Guess who has come to see us !" she 

 cried. 



Her father answered indistinctly from the parlour, 

 and a chair creaked. I judged he was disturbed 

 in his nap. 



" Mother !" she called in her clear, young voice. 

 " Puss I" 



Puss was her sister. 



She told them, in a marvelling key, that I had 

 walked all the way from Clayton, and they gathered 

 about me and echoed her notes of surprise. 



" You'd better sit down, Willie," said her father, 

 " now you have got here. How's your mother?" 



He looked at me curiously as he spoke. 



He was dressed in his Sunday clothes, a sort of 

 brownish tweeds, but the waistcoat was unbuttoned 

 for greater comfort in his slumbers. He was a 



brown-eyed, ruddy man, and J still have in my mind 

 the bright effect of the red-golden hairs that started 

 out from his cheek to flow down into his beard. 

 He was short but strongly built, and fiis beard and 

 moustache were the biggest things about him. She 

 had taken all the possibility of beauty he possessed, 

 his clear skin, his bright hazel-brown eyes, and 

 wedded them to a certain quickness she got from her 

 mother. Her mother I remember as a sharp-eyed 

 woman of great activity ; she always seems to me 

 now to have been bringing in or taking out meals, 

 or doing some such service, and to me — for my 

 mother's sake and my own — she was always welcom- 

 ing and kind. Puss was a youngster of fourteen, 

 perhaps, of whom a hard, bright stare and a pale 

 skin like her mother's are the chief traces on my 

 memory. All these people were very kind to me 

 always, and among them there was a common recog- 

 nition, sometimes very agreeably finding expression, 

 that I was — clever. They all stood about me as if 

 they were a little at a loss. 



" Sit down !' said her father. ' Give him a chair, 

 Puss." 



We talked a little stiffly ; they were all surprised 

 by my sudden apparition, dusty, fatigued and white- 

 faced ; but Nettie did not remain to keep the con- 

 versation going. 



" There !" she cried suddenly, as if she were 

 vexed. " I declare !" and she darted out of the 

 room. 



" Lord ! what a giri it is !" said Mrs. Stuart. " I 

 don't know what's come to her." 



It was half-an-hour before Nettie came back. It 

 seemed a long time to me, and yet she had been 

 running, for when she came in again she was out 

 of breath. In the meantime, I had thrown out 

 casually that I had given up my place at Rawdon's. 

 " I can do better than that," I said. 



" I left my book in the dell," she said, panting. 

 " Is tea ready?" and that was her apology. . . . 



We didn't shake down into comfort even with 

 the coming of the tea-things. Tea at the gardener's 

 cottage was a serious meal, with a big cake and 

 little cakes, and preserves and fruit, a fine spread 

 upon a table. You must imagine me, sullen, awk- 

 ward and preoccupied, perplexed by the something 

 that was inexplicably unexpected in Nettie, saying 

 little and glowering across the cake at her, and all 

 the eloquence I had been concentrating for the 

 previous twenty-four hours miserably lost somewhere 

 in the back of my mind. Nettie's father tried to 

 set me talking ; he' had a liking for my gift of ready 

 speech, for his own ideas came with difficulty, i 

 ho was pleased to hear me pouring out my views. 

 Indeed, over there I was, I think, even more talka- 

 tive than with Parioad, though to the world at large 

 I was a shy young lout. " You ought to write it 

 out for the newspapers," he used to say. " That's 

 what vou ought to do. / never heard such non- 

 sense." 



