empty--none of the servants, not even Priscilla, caring about visiting
it--haunted, it was, they said--she had plenty of time to spend what
hours she liked with her treasure without having to do so by stealth, as
in the beginning. For any place indoors she loved the long gallery
better than any other place. The broken window panes had been mended
when the turn for the better came for the whole house, and now she
herself kept it all dusted and tidy and used it as a sitting-room and
work-room as well; and, above all, it was the temple of the goddess
wherein was her shrine.

This day when Aphrodite was uncovered from her blue silk wrappings, her
whole expression seemed to be one of appeal; however Halcyone would hold
her, in high or low light, the eyes appeared to be asking her something.

"What is it, sweet mother and friend?" she said. "Do you not want me to
leave you to-day? If so, indeed I will not. What are you telling me with
those beautiful, sad eyes? That something is coming into my existence
that you promised me always, and that it will cause me sorrow, and I
must pause?"--and she shivered slightly and laid her cheek against the
marble cheek. "I am not afraid, and I want whatever it must be, since it
is life." Then she put the head back, and started upon her walk. But
first one thing and then another delayed her, until last of all she sat
down under the oak near the gap in the hedge and asked herself if all
these things could be chance. And here she took to dreaming and watching
the young rabbits come out of their holes, and to wondering what Fate
held in store for her in the immediate future. What was going to be her
life? That nothing but good could happen she always knew, because since
the very beginning God--the same personal kindly force that she had
always worshiped, unaltered by her deep learning, unweakened by any
theological dissertations--was there manifesting the whole year round