thing called "Air Religieux" that I think none of us will ever hear
again without thinking of the humming on the roof and the candles
all around the room and one big one on the piano beside Aunt Ailsa,
making her hair all shiny. Her hair is amberish, too, like Greg's,
but her eyes are a very golden kind of brown, while his are dark
blue.

We thought she'd forgotten about being sad, but one night when I
couldn't sleep because it was so hot I heard her crying, and Mother
talking the way she does to us when something makes us unhappy. I
felt rather frightened, somehow, and wretched, and I covered up my
ears because I didn't think Aunt would want me to hear them talking
there.

The next day the sun really came out and stayed out. All of _us_
came out, too, and explored the garden. The grass had grown till it
stood up like hay, and there were such tall green weeds in the
flowerbeds that Mother couldn't believe they'd grown during the rain
and thought they were some phlox she'd overlooked. The phlox itself
was staggering with flowers, and all the lupin leaves held round
water-drops in the hollows of their five-fingered hands. Greg said
that they were fairy wash-basins. He also found a drowned
field-mouse and a sparrow. He was frightfully sorry about it, and
carried them around wrapped up in a warm flannel till Mother begged
him to give them a military funeral. Jerry soaked all the labels off
a cigar-box, and then burned a most beautiful inscription on the lid
with his pyrography outfit. Part of the inscription was a poem by
Greg, which went like this:

"O little sparrow,