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“Oh——”

“You remember young Carleton Canby? Well, he was very attentive at one time, and the night I told him I was going to marry Harold, seven years ago, in ninety-two, he drew himself way up and said: ‘Evylyn, I’m going to give a present that’s as hard as you are and as beautiful and as empty and as easy to see through.’ He frightened me a little—his eyes were so black. I thought he was going to deed me a haunted house or something that would explode when you opened it. That bowl came, and of course it’s beautiful. Its diameter or circumference or something is two and a half feet—or perhaps it’s three and a half. Anyway, the sideboard is really too small for it; it sticks way out.”

“My dear, wasn’t that odd! And he left town about then, didn’t he?” Mrs. Fairboalt was scribbling italicized notes on her memory—“hard, beautiful, empty, and easy to see through.”

“Yes, he went West—or South—or somewhere,” answered Mrs. Piper, radiating that divine vagueness that helps to lift beauty out of time.