“They certainly were,” Mrs. Hunnowell insisted. “Why not capitalize? If you don’t wish to take up Father’s business in the Far East, then why not pen a little collection of tales, such as gentlemen do—”

“Gentlemen,” Bart broke in hurriedly, “can rarely spare the time to write.”

“Oh?” Now Mrs. Hunnowell was affronted. “And what of Sir Walter Scott?”

“Sir Walter Scott wrote the same story over and over and over again.” Bart had seated himself on the verandah railing. “Adventure! Romance! Country! Tra la! In any event, Mater”—the slack, teasing voice suddenly tightened with regret—“I am no writer. I cannot plot. I can only watch—and comment.”

“Well, dear,” his mother began brightly, “‘They also serve who stand and—’” I looked up. Bart Hunnowell had departed mother and conversation and was halfway down the lawn.

A terrific racket broke out just then upon the piazza. Mrs. French had gathered the children staying at Grange House to pick raspberries for a tea cake, and as they ran down the wooden steps of the House with their bowls in their hands, descending on the patch and on my solitude, I rose up and watched. Mrs. French stood at the front of the piazza, directing three of the children toward a clump of bushes farther down the lawn, waving with one hand distractedly as she held her dog in the other.

Hattie and Sylvia Havemeyer strayed shyly toward me, clutching their bowls to their chests.

“Do you have some berries, Maisie?” they whispered.

“Berries? There aren’t any berries around here,” I said firmly, and stepped in front of their view of my full bowl. They halted, nonplussed. Sylvia fidgeted with her apron; the older of the two, she wasn’t quite sure whether they had suddenly entered into a game of my design or whether, in fact, there were no berries at all. She opened her mouth to ask again; then suddenly, both she and her sister shouted with laughter, dropping their bowls and clapping their hands at something behind me.