wear about the house since the warm days had come. Thryng had seen her in such a dress but once before, and he liked it. With one arm guarding the little bundle in her lap, dividing her attention between it and the porridge she was making, she sat, a living embodiment of David's vision, silhouetted against and haloed by the red fire, softened by the blue, obscuring smoke-wreaths that slowly circled in great rings and then swept up the wide, overarching chimney.
He heard her low voice speaking, and his heart leaped toward her as he stood an instant, unheeded by them, ere he rapped lightly. They both turned with a slight start. Cassandra rose, holding the sleeping babe in the hollow of her arm, and set a chair for him before the fire. Then she laid the child carefully in the mother's arms, and removed the porridge from the fire.
"Shall I call Hoke?" she asked, moving toward the door.
David did not want her to leave them, loving the sight of her. "Don't go. I saw him as I came along," he said.
But she went on, and sat herself on a seat under a huge locust tree. Tardiest of all the trees, it had not yet leaved out. Later it would be covered with a wealth of sweet white blossoms swarming with honey-bees, and the air all about it would be filled with its lavish fragrance and the noise of humming wings.
Presently Hoke came plodding up from the field, and smiled as he passed her. "Doc inside?" he asked.