breath of pleasure. "Lavender! Hilary."

Hilary smiled, catching some of her sister's enthusiasm. She leaned
back among her cushions, her eyes on the stretch of shining water at
the far end of the pasture. "I wish you were going to be here, Paul,
so that we could go rowing. I wonder if I'll ever feel as if I could
row again, myself."

"Of course you will, and a great deal sooner than you think." Pauline
hung Hilary's dressing-gown across the foot of the high double bed.
"Now I think you're all settled, ma'am, and I hope to your
satisfaction. Isn't it a veritable 'chamber of peace,' Hilary?"

Through the open door and windows came the distant tinkle of a cow
bell, and other farm sounds. There came, too, the scent of the early
May pinks growing in the borders of Mrs. Boyd's old-fashioned flower
beds. Already the peace and quiet of the house, the homely comfort,
had done Hilary good; the thought of the long simple days to come, were
not so depressing as they had seemed when thought of that morning.

"Bless me, I'd forgotten, but I've a bit of news for you," Mrs. Boyd
said, coming in, a moment or so later; "the manor's taken for the
summer."

"Really?" Pauline cried, "why it's been empty for ever and ever so
long."

The manor was an old rambling stone house, standing a little back from
a bit of sandy beach, that jutted out into the lake about a mile from
The Maples. It was a pleasant place, with a tiny grove of its own, and