"Mother says you're to wear that sweet hat you had on last Sunday. Good.
One o'clock. Bye-bye."

Laura put back the receiver, flung her arms over her head, took a deep
breath, stretched and let them fall. "Huh," she sighed, and the moment
after the sigh she sat up quickly. She was still, listening. All the
doors in the house seemed to be open. The house was alive with soft, quick
steps and running voices. The green baize door that led to the kitchen
regions swung open and shut with a muffled thud. And now there came a
long, chuckling absurd sound. It was the heavy piano being moved on its
stiff castors. But the air! If you stopped to notice, was the air always
like this? Little faint winds were playing chase, in at the tops of the
windows, out at the doors. And there were two tiny spots of sun, one on
the inkpot, one on a silver photograph frame, playing too. Darling little
spots. Especially the one on the inkpot lid. It was quite warm. A warm
little silver star. She could have kissed it.

The front door bell pealed, and there sounded the rustle of Sadie's print
skirt on the stairs. A man's voice murmured; Sadie answered, careless,
"I'm sure I don't know. Wait. I'll ask Mrs Sheridan."

"What is it, Sadie?" Laura came into the hall.

"It's the florist, Miss Laura."

It was, indeed. There, just inside the door, stood a wide, shallow tray
full of pots of pink lilies. No other kind. Nothing but lilies--canna
lilies, big pink flowers, wide open, radiant, almost frighteningly alive on
bright crimson stems.