bride ordered me around and put on a great many airs.
The couple left for the boat. Mrs. Pendergast and I cleared up. We did not talk much as we worked. We were tired.
Soon the doctor said the Reverend Daniel Pendergast could go home to the prairies again because his heart was healed. I was glad when the cab rolled down the street carrying the cruel, emaciated Reverend and the one-eyed ingrate away from my houseâI was glad I did not have to be their landlady any more.
A VISITOR
DEATH HAD BEEN snooping round for a week. Everyone in the house knew how close he was. The one he wanted lay in my spare room but she was neither here nor there. She was beyond our reach, deaf to our voices.
The sun and spring air came into her roomâa soft-coloured, contented room. The new green of spring was close outside the windows. The smell of wall-flower and sweet alyssum rose from the garden, and the inexpressible freshness of the daffodils.
The one tossing on the bed had been a visitor in my house for but a short time. Death made his appointment with her there. The meeting was not hatefulâit was beautiful and welcome to her.
People in the house moved quietly. Human voices were tuned so low that the voices in inanimate thingsâshutting of doors, clicks of light switches, crackling of firesâswelled to importance. Clocks ticked off the solemn moments as loudly as their works would let them.
Death came while she slept. He touched her, she sighed and let go.
We picked the wall-flowers and the daffodils, and brought them to her, close. There was the same still radiance about themas about her. Every bit of her was happy. The smile soaked over her forehead, eyelids and lipsâmore than a smileâa glad, silent expression.
Lots of people had loved her; they came to put flowers near and to say goodbye. They came out of her room with quiet, uncrying eyes, stood a moment by the fire in the studio, looking deep into it, and then they went away. We could not be sad for her.
The coffin was taken into the studio. One end rested on the big table which was heaped with flowers. The keen air came in through the east windows. Outside there was a row of tall poplars, gold with young spring.
Her smileâthe flowersâquietâpossessed the whole house.
A faint subtle change came over her face. She was asking to be hidden away.
A parson came in his mournful black. He had a low, sad voiceâwhile he was talking we cried.
They took her down the long stairs. The undertakers grumbled about the corners. They put her in the waiting hearse and took her away.
The house went back to normal, but now it was a mature place. It had known birth, marriage and death, yet it had been built for but one short year.
THE DOLLâS HOUSE COUPLE
IT WAS MADE for them, as surely as they were made for each other. I knew it as soon as I saw the young pair standing at my door. They knew it too the moment I opened the door of the Dollâs House. His eyes said things into hers, and her eyes said things into his. First their tongues said nothing, and then simultaneously, âItâs ours!â The key hopped into the manâs pocket and the rent hopped into mine.
One outer door was common to their flat and to mine. Every time I came in and out passing their door I could hear them chatting and laughing. Their happiness bubbled through. Sometimes she was singing and he was whistling. They must do something, they were so happy.
AT FIVE OâCLOCK each evening his high spirits tossed his body right up the stairâthere she was peeping over the rail, or hiding behind the door waiting to pounce on the tragedy written all over him because he had not found her smiling face hanging over the verandah rail. She pulled him into the Dollâs House, told him all about her dayâheard all about his.
She tidied the flat all day and he untidied it all night. He was such a big âbaby-man,â she a mother-girl who had to take