"He was in Mercer a week ago; I know he was, because there is
always that directors' meeting on the last Thursday in April, so he
must have been there. And he wouldn't come!" Down in the orchard the
apple-trees were in blossom, and when the wind stirred, the petals
fell in sudden warm white showers; across the sky, from west to east,
was a path of mackerel clouds. It was a pastel of spring--a dappled
sky, apple blossoms, clover, and the river's sheen of gray-blue. All
about her were the beginnings of summer--the first exquisite green of
young leaves; oaks, still white and crumpled from their furry sheaths;
horse-chestnuts, each leaf drooping from its stem like a hand bending
at the wrist; a thin flicker of elm buds, still distrustful of the
sun. Later, this delicate dance of foliage would thicken so that the
house would be in shadow, and the grass under the locusts on either
side of the front door fade into thin, mossy growth. But just now it
was overflowing with May sunshine. "Oh, he _would_ enjoy it if he
would only come," she thought. Well, anyhow, David would like it; and
she began to fell her seam with painstaking unaccustomed fingers.
The child was to come that day. Half a dozen times she dropped her
work to run to the gate, and shielding her eyes with her hand looked
down the road to Old Chester, but there was no sign of the jogging
hood of the buggy. Had anything happened? Was he sick? _Had Dr.
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