"Well, dear, what have you been up to all the week?" said Aunt M. when Nan had run down the stairs and back into the parlor. "I hope you haven't been gadding about a lot, like last week." "Not a gad," said Nan laughing. They sat side by side on the curvebacked sofa in front of the window. Nan was looking down at Aunt M.'s old hands swollen at the knuckles that lay halfclenched on the full mauve satin of her dress. In her nostrils was a tang from the chrysanthemums. "And how's your practicing?" "Pretty good this week." "You know how I feel about your music, Nancibel." There was a flame of blue in Aunt M.'s hazel eyes. "You mustn't put too much faith in it," said Nan roughly. She went on hastily in a high nervous voice like her voice when she had people to tea: "Practiced every day but Thursday. Worked to a frazzle, really. How the neighbors must hate me. And there's somebody two floors down who plays the cornet all the morning, so we do a sort of distant duet with the effect quite ... modern." "Why didn't you practice Thursday deary?" "I went out to Nahant with Fanshaw and Wendell to see the surf. There was a wonderful noreaster blowing." "You see a lot of those two young men." "Of course I do.... But, Auntie, what have you been doing? When did you get the chrysanthemums? they're lovely." "You can't get me off the track that way," said Aunt M. with a sly smile. "Which of them is it, Nancibel?" "No, it's different from that.... O, I can't explain it." Nan saw herself and Wenny and Fanshaw running arm in arm on the turf at the cliffedge, leaning against the wind, the taste of spray on their lips. "It's so difficult to classify feelings. That's what Wenny says.... O, you wouldn't understand Auntie." Nan felt the old woman beside her wince. "O, I didn't mean that, Aunt M. Why am I so dreadfully inconsiderate?" "I wonder why Cousin Jane Turnstable doesn't come. I hope they won't be late. It upsets poor Judkins so to have to keep dinner hot." They were silent. O, I must think of something to talk about, Nan was saying over and over again in her mind. She was staring at the little Corot that hung beside the mantel. A poplar overhanging water greywhite like milkweed silk. "Do you remember Auntie when I was a little girl what ecstasies I used to go into over that little picture? When you used to tell me about abroad I used to think of everything as pale green and silver grey, like that picture." "A funny impatient little girl you were," said Aunt M. softly. "Poor Elizabeth used to worry so about your tantrums, but I used to reassure her by saying it was merely temperament and that you'd be a great artist some day.... If she had only been spared to us to hear you play...." The door bell rang. "There they are," said Nan with relief. "And they are not late after all. Punctual to the minute.... O, my dear Cousin Jane, how glad I am to see you. And James you've grown I declare.... Helen, you'll kiss your old cousin, won't you, dear?"