she paused a minute to gather her skirts more firmly. It was a home- field she was in now, and right before her lay the country house. Long and low and white it stood in the glamourous evening haze, with two bright panes, where the sunlight fell, watching, like eyes, the confines of its acres; and behind it, to the left, broad, square, and grey among its elms, the village church. Around, above, beyond, was peace–the sleepy, misty peace of the English afternoon.
Mrs. Pendyce walked towards her garden. When she was near it, away to the right, she saw the Squire and Mr. Barter. They were standing together looking at a tree and–symbol of a subservient under-world– the spaniel John was seated on his tail, and he, too, was looking at the tree. The faces of the Rector and Mr. Pendyce were turned up at the same angle, and different as those faces and figures were in their eternal rivalry of type, a sort of essential likeness struck her with a feeling of surprise. It was as though a single spirit seeking for a body had met with these two shapes, and becoming confused, decided to inhabit both.
Mrs. Pendyce did not wave to them, but passed quickly, between the yew-trees, through the wicket-gate….
In her garden bright drops were falling one by one from every rose- leaf, and in the petals of each rose were jewels of water. A little down the path a weed caught her eye; she looked closer, and saw that there were several.
‘Oh,’ she thought, ‘how dreadfully they’ve let the weeds I must really speak to Jackman!’
A rose-tree, that she herself had planted, rustled close by, letting fall a shower of drops.
Mrs. Pendyce bent down, and took a white rose in her fingers. With her smiling lips she kissed its face.
1907.