She was several
times on the point of sharing the fun of it with her daughter, but was
prevented by an instinctive feeling that it was hardly the sort of
story to tell a young girl about a personal acquaintance. So she
restrained herself, though the solitary enjoyment of it irritated her.
They were sitting on the wide porch which ran around two sides of the
house just as twilight was falling. The air was full of drowsy calls
and twitters from the grass and the trees. The two ladies had been
sitting ever since dinner, enjoying the warm air of the early summer,
talking very little, and dropping often into long and contented
silences. Mrs. Belding had condescended to grenadine in consideration
of the weather, and so looked less funereal than usual. Alice was
dressed in a soft and vapory fabric of creamy bunting, in the midst of
which her long figure lay reclined in an easy chair of Japanese bamboo;
she might have posed for a statue of graceful and luxurious repose.
There was light enough from the rising moon and the risen stars to show
the clear beauty of her face and the yellow lustre of her hair; and her
mother cast upon her from time to time a glance of pride and fondness,
as if she were a recovered treasure to which the attraction of novelty
had just been added anew.
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