The car stopped at the corner of old Saint John's; we got out, assisting Aunt Euphronasia, and then turned down a side street in the direction of our new home. As we mounted the curving steps, Sally passed a little ahead of me, and looked back with her hand on the door. "I am happy, Ben," she said with a smile; and with the words on her lips, she crossed the threshold and entered the wide hall, where the moth-eaten stags' heads, worn bare of fur, still hung on the faded plaster. My first impression upon entering the room was that the strange surroundings struck with a homelike and familiar aspect upon my consciousness. Then, as bewilderment gave place before a closer scrutiny, I saw that this aspect was due to the presence of the objects by which I had been so long accustomed to see Sally surrounded. Her amber satin curtains hung at the windows; the deep couch, with the amber lining, upon which she rested before dressing for dinner, stood near the hearth; and even the two crystal vases, which I had always seen holding fresh flowers upon her small, inlaid writing desk, were filled now with branching clusters of American Beauty roses. Beyond them, and beyond the amber satin curtains at the long window, I saw the elm boughs arching against a pale gold sunset into which a single swallow was flying. And I remember that swallow as I remember the look, swift, expectant, as if it, also, were flying, that trembled, for an instant, on Sally's face. "It is George," she said, turning to me with radiant eyes; "George has done this. These are the things he bought, and I wondered so what he would do with them." Then before something in my face, the radiance died out of her eyes. "Would you rather he didn't do it? Would you rather I shouldn't keep them?" she asked. A struggle began within me. Through the window I could see still the pale gold sunset beyond the elms, but the swallow was gone, and gone, also, from Sally's face was the look as of one flying. "Would you rather that I shouldn't keep them?" she asked again, and her voice was very gentle. At that gentleness the struggle ceased as sharply as it had begun. "Do as you choose, darling, you know far better than I," I replied; and bending over her, I raised her chin that was lowered, and kissed her lips. A light, a bloom, something that was fragrant and soft as the colour and scent of the American Beauty roses, broke over her as she looked up at me with her mouth still opening under my kiss. "Then I'll keep them," she answered, "because it would hurt him so, Ben, if I sent them back."