But Hortense would not listen to more. She had pushed back her chair and was at the door. “You’re almost horrifying, Mother Weyman! Joan is a friend of mine. I admire her and I’m deeply fond of her. You know that very well. I’m sorry I interrupted your morning retreat. It would have been much better if I hadn’t.” She smiled, but wholly artificially, into the glare of March sunshine with the blur, somewhere at the center of it, which was Grandam, before shutting the door with careful softness between them. Ariel was enjoying her solitary explorations in Wild Acres’ woods. The snow was not deep, and by following paths part of the time, and keeping to ridges the rest of the time, she avoided going too often over her rubbers. Woods in March! The stillness of them! The mystery! Beauty dumb. But not Beauty inarticulate. A girl had leapt a brook whose summer loveliness was stilled to ice, and stood on the other side, circled by beauty that was making itself articulate in her very veins—no need for sight, touch or smell. Winter woods have communications that can overleap the senses altogether on their avenues to the soul. Whenever Ariel came to a rise of ground she looked for the house, in order to keep her bearings, and because the attic windows, which Hugh had pointed out from the station platform, fascinated her. She noticed that although they were dormer windows they were of an unusual height and width. After a while she had almost a sense of the windows being eyes that followed her, knew and cared about her adventures with the woods. Twice Hugh had warned her, once on the drive out from New York, and again this morning at the station, that his grandmother was not _mysterious_. But why emphasize it so? Ariel would never have thought of mystery in connection with the old lady up there if it hadn’t been for these protests. Some hint of mysteriousness had showed even in Mrs. Weyman’s face last night, when she said in answer to a question from Joan that the shawl she was knitting was for Grandam, and even more in the faces of the others. At the words, a ripple of incredulity had gone over the room. Why, if Mrs. Weyman had said “This shawl? Oh, it’s for Spring. I thought she might be chilly, if she gets here early, dear Spring,”—they wouldn’t have looked more incredulous for just that instant. And then, when any one had spoken of the likelihood or unlikelihood of Grandam’s coming downstairs to join them after dinner, they might as well have been asking, “Will the wind blow? Will it rain? Do you think a bird may fly across the window?” It was like that.