"I am to figure out what I owe them, and mail them a
check. Some of their things they got out--most of them, I guess. I
saw someone putting their trunk on a wagon, awhile back, and I
imagine that we have parted forever."
"Hannah transfers herself this night to the Fielding menage" Nancy
added after a while. "Which reduces our staff to Agnes. I never
want to part with Agnes. You can't buy tears and loyalty like
that; they're a gift from God, Where do we spend the night, by the
way?"
Bert gazed at her calmly.
"I have not the faintest idea, my dear woman!" Then they laughed
in the old fashion, together.
"But do look at the sunlight coming down through the trees, and
the water beyond there," Nancy presently said. "Isn't it a lovely
place--Holly Court? Really this is a wonderful garden."
"That's what I was thinking," Bert agreed. It had been many
months, perhaps years, since the Bradleys had commented upon the
sunlight, as it fell all summer long through the boughs of their
own trees.
Gradually the crowd melted away, and the acrid odour of wet wood
mingled with the smell of burning. And gradually that second odour
gave way to the persuasive sweetness of the summer evening, the
sharp, delicate fragrance that is loosed when the first dew falls,
and the perfumes of reviving flowers.
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