Tiverton was seizing the opportunity of a perfect day and the best of
"going," and was taking its way to market. The trivial happenings of
this far-away world had thus far elicited no more than a passing glance
from Mrs. Blair; she was too absorbed in domestic warfare even to peer
down through the leafless lilac-boughs, in futile wonderment as to
whose bells they might be, ringing merrily past. On one journey about
the room, however, some chance arrested her gaze. She stopped,
transfixed.

"Forever!" she cried. Her nervous, blue-veined hands clutched at her
apron and held it; she was motionless for a moment. Yet the picture
without would have been quite devoid of interest to the casual eye; it
could have borne little significance save to one who knew the inner
life history of the Tiverton Home, and thus might guess what slight
events wrought all its joy and pain. A young man had set up his camera
at the end of the walk, and thrown the cloth over his head, preparatory
to taking the usual view of the house. Mrs. Blair recovered from her
temporary inaction. She rushed to the window, and threw up the sash.
Her husky voice broke strenuously upon the stillness:--

"Here! you keep right where you be! I'm goin' to be took! You wait till
I come!"

She pulled down the window, and went in haste to the closet, in the
excess of her eagerness stumbling recklessly forward into its depths.

"Where's my bandbox?" Her voice came piercingly from her temporary
seclusion. "Where'd they put it? It ain't here in sight! My soul!
where's my bunnit?"