dishes, and were silent. Cherry would sit on, her arms wrapped in
her apron, her eyes staring into the young night. In the darkness
she could only see the great shadows that were the Adams'
windmill, and the old Brown barn, and the Cutters' house down the
back road. The dry earth seemed awake at night, stretching itself,
under brown sods, for a great breath of relief in the merciful
coolness. Cherry could smell grapes, and smell the pleasant
wetness of the dust where the late watering cart had passed by,
after sunset. The roads were too hot for watering all day long,
and this sweet, wet odour only came with the night.

A dream of ease and adoration and beauty came to her. She did not
visualize any special place, any special gown or hour or person.
But she saw her beauty fittingly environed; she saw cool rooms,
darkened against this blazing midsummer glare; heard ice clinking
against glass; the footsteps of attentive maids; the sound of
cultivated voices, of music and laughter. She had had these dreams
before, but they were becoming habitual now. She was so tired--so
sick--so bored with her real life; it was becoming increasingly
harder and harder for her to live with Martin; to endure and to
struggle against the pricks. She was always in a suppressed state
of wanting to break out, to shout at him brazenly, "I don't care
if your coffee is weak! I like it weak! I don't care if you don't
like my hat--I do! Stop talking about yourself!"

Various little mannerisms of his began seriously to annoy her; a
rather grave symptom, had Cherry but known it. He danced his big
fingers on the handle of the sugar spoon at breakfast, sifting the
sugar over his cereal; she had to turn her eyes resolutely away
from the sight. He blew his nose, folded his handkerchief, and