But when she put the receiver down, she felt dismayed, and decided on an impulse to try to get over to see Jane, take her one of the white cyclamens—if not today, then tomorrow.

Then Jem called to ask whether she had started on the chapter about the women, as he wanted to bring her some material about his own aunt who had, he said, been a remarkable painter of nature and should be mentioned. Christina put him off for a week or so, explaining that Cornelius needed time to rest—but Jem’s call made her feel cross and at sixes and sevens with herself. She really must plan time to work. And Jem was quite right in suggesting that women artists, of whom there had been several besides the formidable Miss Portland, must come into any chapter about the women of Willard. So she fled down to Ellen’s before the dishes had been washed—fled from the telephone, fled like a bird to a haven, a shelter from all that life was demanding of her, for a moment’s rest.

She found Ellen sewing by the window—curtains for Jem’s kitchen windows, she explained. But she took off her spectacles and laid the work down as they talked, remarking that it was odd how the color red strained the eyes.

As always there seemed to be a lot of news to be related when one had gone away even for only twenty-four hours. Old Mr. Patten was at war again with the road agent, and Ed Taggart swore he wouldn’t plow the drive, come the next snow. “Let him get someone else. He can afford to pay.” Nick was off on his snowshoes to be sure the mountain lion was still around and alive. And Old Pete worried Ellen because Nick said that half the time he didn’t keep the fire going at night.

“Nick’s been over there two or three times to get it started for him, Old Pete lying there under a blanket moaning about pains in his legs.”

“He can’t survive the winter, Ellen. It’s awful.”

“Well, you can’t persuade Old Pete to look for shelter now—he isn’t well enough to do it.”

“What then?”

Ellen shrugged.

“The Lord has kept an eye on Old Pete all these years. Maybe He won’t fail him this time. But it’s asking a lot!” And she smiled her thin smile.

“Asking a lot of Nick, if you ask me!”

“Oh, well, Nick seems to think he is the Lord himself these days, at least where any wild animal is concerned. His eye is on the sparrow all right.”

She turned her eyes to the window and up at the dark sky.

“Looks like snow.”

“Don’t you worry about him when he goes off alone like that?”