The spring wind, rainy and mournful, came groping out of the waste
places and cried about the house like a man mourning for his love. The
cavern of night, impenetrable and vast, was full of echoes, as if some
voice, terrible and violent, had shouted there a long while since, and
might, even before the age-long reverberations had died away, be
uplifted again, if it was the will of the Power (invisible but so
immanent that it pressed upon the brain) that inhabited the obscure,
star-dripping cavern.




Chapter 13


Next morning Mrs. Marston came in from the kitchen with the toast,
which she would not trust anyone but herself to make, with a face
portending great happenings.

'Mind you see that they are all properly placed, Edward; they should be
all together in one part of the room.'

'Who'd that be?' Hazel inquired.

'1906, plums; 1908, gooseberries; 1909, cherries, sugarless. The
sugared ones are older.' Mrs. Marston spoke so personally that Hazel
stared.

'It's mother's exhibits, Hazel,' explained Edward.