College Commencement had passed--"commencement had ended," Bartlemy said--and the Rutherfords were all back in Fayre for the long vacation. Basil wrote every morning, to test his powers further in his chosen vocation; Bruce read and drove with Dr. Fairbairn every day; Bartlemy painted with industry, so that the long June days were far from idle ones. And Commodore Rutherford, "their long lost father," as Bruce called him, was coming home at last from the East to see the sons whom he had left tall boys, and was to find young men. There was a feeling of coming events in the air; with the supervising of the new house, the constant coming and going of Hester Baldwin, the absorbing interest of the increasing prosperity and success of Green Pastures, Mrs. Grey found her girls harder to secure for home usefulness than they had ever been before. Lydia complained feelingly of the difficulty she experienced in finding time to prepare the household linen which, though she would have no use for it in Miss Charlotte's house, she evidently regarded as equally indispensable to a lawful marriage as a license. Besides all these distractions which disturbed the even currents of life in the little grey house, Aunt Azraella was rapidly growing much more ill; it was plain to them all that the term of life allowed her by the doctor was to be greatly curtailed. Aunt Azraella had not been the sort of person to which young affections are likely to cling; but death is never less than awful, and the shadow of Azrael's wings, drooping visibly over the woman who bore his name, modified the sunlight of that summer in the little grey house. The Greys allowed no day to pass without many of its hours being spent by one of them up in the big house on the hill. Altogether it was a time of many interruptions. Rob had told her first series of stories to the Fayre children, and was launched on her second set continued late into July. She was winding it up with great relief, though her audience gave her attention most flattering, considering the heat, and that they were all at what Prue called "the wriggling age." The dear old wainscotted room was shaded into comparative coolness, and a great bunch of mignonette sustained Rob through her last story with its fragrance close to her hand. Over by the window sat little Polly Flinders, looking out dreamily upon the warm stillness of the afternoon as she listened to Rob. The child never joined the other children who flocked close to Rob's side and hung on her knees; her love for her idol was too exclusive to share with these more prosperous little ones, too sacred to reveal to their eyes--Polly kept her revelations of it for Rob's knowledge alone. Now she looked around so suddenly that Rob halted in her story, and asked: "What is it, Polly?" "Your Aunt Azraella is coming," said Polly, and as she spoke Mrs. Winslow's figure passed the window, and paused at the rarely used door which led from this room out on the yard.