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It was so hot that to breathe was like putting your head under a towel and over the teakettle. The air quivered, the hens lay in the shade, now and then uttering a languid kraw-aw-k, or following with sleepy eyes the flight of a butterfly it was too much trouble to make a try for. Mamma went upstairs after lunch, and got out of her corsets and into a muslin dressing-sacque, but then instead of lying down she took up Mr. Lacey’s note and reread it, pleased, confused, embarrassed, pushed it out of sight behind the box that held her evening hair, and then bent to read a sentence just once again, with reluctant pleasure.

He was coming to tea this evening. He had come to tea ever so many evenings, but this evening would be different, for his heart, the note said, would no longer allow him to keep silence.

And what did her heart tell her to say to him? She ought to pray about it, but other things got mixed up with her prayers and confused her. But certainly she should have Divine guidance. She reached over for the Bible by her bed, shut her eyes, opened at random and brought down a finger:

“And Gilead, and the border of the Geshurites and Maachathites, and all mount Hermon, and all Beshan unto Salcah.”

God moves in a mysterious way. Perhaps this meant that she should take the best bit of advice out of three tries. She shut her eyes again, her finger fell:

“The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.”

But what had Paul to do with Alfred?

“It’s the third time that counts,” said Mamma to herself, but her lifted finger paused. Suppose God should take it seriously this time, and advise against her union with Mr. Lacey? Better not run the risk. She put down the Bible.

Mr. Lacey! Mr. Lacey!

It was so thrilling! She was all soft pleasurable tremors. She smiled at herself in the mirror, her face like a full-blown pink rose. But the mirror was old and put a wash of faint green over the rose, that was not becoming. Oh, dear, she did wish she had the kind of toilet-table she had read about in novels, with a maid to change the lace and bows and flowers for each toilet.

“What does Madame wish to wear to the Duchess’s dinner this evening?”

“My violet satin, Marie, and my pearls.”

And when she came up to dress the toilet-table would look as if a flock of pale purple butterflies had floated in at the open window and lighted among the foamy laces, and the candlelight would fall on Parma violets⁠—

Not much like this clumsy, dark old thing, with the wad of paper tucked in at the side to keep the mirror tilted at the proper angle. Perhaps⁠—if⁠—Mr. Lacey said his happiness would be to make her happy. And beauty made her so happy!

And what should she wear tonight? She really hadn’t anything fit to be seen. She opened her closet door and looked discontentedly at bustled dresses, dark sacques, a row of hats that looked like a poulterer’s window, and green and tobacco-brown parasols with rings in their noses, for carrying upside down. One dress of golden brown velvet and grey satin, with black lace and ruches and passementerie, she could never look at without a surge of self pity. It had been expensive⁠—sombre browns and greys, colors resembling faded flowers and withered leaves, were the extreme of fashion and dear accordingly, and, of course, it was the truest economy to buy really handsome materials. Even though she had made it herself on the wonder of the neighborhood, her new Grover and Baker sewing machine, the cost of the velvet and satin and lace had given her a dizzy moment when she succeeded in adding up the sum to something approaching the right amount. But things were so high now, and it was so becoming, and anyway, she really and truly had needed it, for she had made her old dresses over and tried to freshen them with frills and bows until she was ashamed to be seen in them. And then Maggie had spoiled all her pleasure in it by saying she thought it was awful to spend so much on a dress while there were poor people who hadn’t enough to eat. Mamma had cried dreadfully, for nobody hated more than she to think that there was anyone in the world hungry or unhappy or poor⁠—it made her feel perfectly wretched when she let herself remember it. And she always tried to be kind to the poor, and drove around at Christmas with baskets, and took nice flannel to all the new black babies, no matter how faint the stuffy, smelly cabins made her feel. Mr. Lacey called her an “angel of mercy.” Besides, Maggie didn’t understand at all; she never wanted anything but hideous sensible short dresses and mudproof galoshes of India rubber.

Mr. Lacey thought ladies were made for adorning⁠—it would be so sweet to have sympathy!

Sympathy, servants, admiration, gowns⁠—and he would do so much for Victor and the girls. Her thoughts drifted here and there like butterflies, floating with the sure instinct of those practical insects to sweetness after sweetness.

He would do so much for Victor⁠—that mattered more than anything. Her eyes grew moist with the tears of tenderness that came so easily. Darling, darling little boy! But he did need a father’s guidance, a man’s strong hand. He had been hard to manage lately, making such a fuss over taking his boiled onions and molasses when he had a sore throat, stealing the strawberries he had been told not to touch, and amusing himself by drawing secular subjects on Sunday. Only this morning he had run away, gone fishing with Jake, old Chloe’s great-grandson, when he knew he wasn’t allowed to go on the river without a grownup. Mamma saw them toiling up the lane from the river, so small, so hot, and hardened her heart to scold him. But when he burst on her, wet, scarlet, dirty, with his face radiant with love, crying, “Mamma! Mamma! I caught a fish for your lunch!” what could she do but kiss him, and later eat the horrid thing⁠—it was a catfish, and nothing but love would have made her touch it⁠—with tiny bites cloaked with loud cries of rapture.

The memory of her lunch made her feel quite hungry, and she thought with pleasure of the creamed sweetbreads they were going to have for tea⁠—had she given Martha the sherry for them? Potato salad, cubes of ivory, crisp little white leaves from the heart of the lettuce, and the mayonnaise she made herself so patiently, so beautifully. “It takes a lady to make mayonnaise”⁠—that was one of her maxims. She loved to make it, hypnotized by the drop, drop of the oil, the steady beating of the fork, the smooth rich thickening. Then beaten biscuit⁠—the house had echoed to the thud of their making yesterday. Big red velvet raspberries and dark moist chunks of fruitcake, and coffee with Buttercup’s cream that rolled from the cream-pitcher in a slow, thick, yellow fold. The thought of the good things they were going to have made water come into her mouth; then she remembered who was coming to tea, and why, and decided she wouldn’t be able to eat a mouthful.

It would be a pleasure to plan delicious meals, with Mr. Lacey to appreciate them. A gentleman made all the difference. And, of course, she always asked God, the Night-Watchman, to keep them all safe until morning, but He had so many households to guard, and, when she thought she heard a burglar, it would be reassuring to have a husband. “There’s nothing like a gentleman in the house to keep one from moping,” thought Mamma.

A series of little pictures of Mr. Lacey floated before her. Mr. Lacey about to sing, pulling himself up like a rooster about to crow (though that was not the way she thought of it).

“ ‘Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast
On yonder lea, on yonder lea⁠—’ ”

(But you couldn’t imagine Mr. Lacey in a cold blast. You couldn’t imagine those silky whiskers rumpled, those decorous coattails blown out.)

Mr. Lacey bringing her gloxinias for the conservatory, large bells of white and violet-blue.

Mr. Lacey in his tam-o’-shanter on a botanizing stroll, telling them all the wildflower names.

Mr. Lacey reading Tennyson and Longfellow aloud to her⁠—so much prettier than that Keats that Papa had been so fond of, and you never felt nervous about what might be coming next.

Mr. Lacey in his blue flannels and his straw sailor hat with a blue ribbon taking them on the river in his sailboat so prettily named “Swallow.”

Mr. Lacey⁠—no, the pictures grew too intimate. Mamma, diffused with a warmth not of the day, put her hands over her eyes. Soft waves surged over her body, and the heart in her breast swelled until it held the earth, the sky, the sun and moon and stars. She forgot toilet-tables and how much a man might help a little boy; she forgot cooking sherry and the proprieties. She was no longer thirty-nine, fat, the mother of four children, nor was Mr. Lacey a dapper little gentleman with a sunny temper and an assured income. They were the hidden heart of the world, the pulse of life, the creators, through which life flows in its endless circle.

Bowls of roses on little tables of papier maché inlaid with mother of pearl, perfumed the darkened parlor in honor of Mr. Lacey. Other roses, artificial, adorned the ornament like the skirt of a lady’s ballgown that filled the empty fireplace, looking as if the lady’s head were stuck up the chimney, looking for swallows, perhaps, or stars. Under the bronze Arabs and camels standing beneath palm trees from which wax candles rose, the chilly marble mantelpiece had been put into a red flannel petticoat embroidered in yellow chain-stitch; and the chairs were dressed decently in tatted tidies. Everything in the room was well covered except the Venus de Milo in the darkest corner, that had been a Christmas present from the Blows. Was the statue quite nice, Mamma wondered? But it would have been so embarrassing explaining to Sam and Lizzie, if she had hidden it, and she remembered that Papa had said there were ever so much worse ones abroad.

The parlor windows had new terra-cotta curtains, and lace ones as well. The old crimson curtains had been hung upstairs in the schoolroom. Their folds concealed Victor curled up in a corner of the window seat, sleepy from his morning of fishing on the glaring river. Neither May or Lily knew he was there.

Lily ought to have been practicing “Convent Bells at Twilight” on the piano with its fan of puckered green silk in the front, and the swinging candle-holders. But it was so hot, and four flats were so hard. Besides, she wanted to talk to May, who was cutting out a picture of a statue of Psyche to paste on green “velvet” cardboard. Lily watched the quick flashing of the sharp scissors. If she had been doing it she would have torn the delicate winged figure, or pasted it on crooked, or messed the glue. She did things clumsily, as if her fingertips were numb, not like May’s that seemed as sensitive as the fingertips of a blind person.

“May!”

“Mm,” said May, abstracted.

“May, do you think Mamma is going to⁠—that Mamma and Mr. Lacey are going to⁠—you know!”

“Oh, Lily! Don’t!” May blushed brightly, delicately, and began to laugh; and Lily, blushing and laughing too, swung this way, that way on the fringed plush mushroom of the piano stool.

“Wouldn’t it seem⁠—I don’t know⁠—funny, if they got married? I sort of think maybe they will, though, don’t you?”

The sisters looked at each other, shaking with nervous laughter. They were curious, uneasy, and mildly unhappy. But Lily would have quite loved kind Mr. Lacey, if only the others had, and May had a sudden flashing vision of gloves from Paris, a trip to Italy.

“Who is that beautiful girl with the wistful eyes, looking out to sea?”

“That is May Campion, the stepdaughter of the rich Mr. Lacey. He showers every luxury upon her, they say.”

“And yet that lovely face is the saddest I ever saw in my life.”

“May⁠—do you think Mr. Lacey ever⁠—ever kisses Mamma?”

“Lily, how can you? You’re perfectly awful! Stop, for mercy’s sake!”

But they couldn’t stop laughing. Lily’s head went down with a clash on the piano keys, and her hair curtained her burning cheeks, while May’s hands shook so she had to put down the little picture⁠—Psyche, the butterfly-winged, Psyche, the soul. But it was not only laughter that made her hands shake. Thinking about kissing did, too. She thought so much about being kissed. She longed passionately to be kissed, and would have died rather than admit it, for Mamma had brought her daughters up with great propriety. The prince of her secret dreams, in pink tights with a white ostrich tip in his toque, had long since given way to a dark handsome cruel Roman emperor, in snowy toga and imperial purple mantle, with his brows drawn together over his dark eyes. And she was a Christian virgin, exquisite, slender, white as a stalk of fire-white lilies. He tortured her and she adored him, he pressed his beautiful scornful mouth to hers, and she melted away with delight. At night she would lie thrilling, trembling, burying her face in the pillow so that the little moans of ecstasy she could not keep back, should not waken Lily, sleeping so quietly beside her.

Now that she was growing up she sometimes “tried on” different young men in her imagination, in the place of her emperor. And although she looked on her love life as the reality, Mamma’s as the dream, she tried to imagine Mr. Lacey kissing Mamma⁠—oh⁠—horrid! So prim and pecky! Or else soft and playful, which would be worse. A kiss wouldn’t be a kiss unless it hurt you, made you want to swoon, to die! But Mr. Lacey kissing Mamma would be as passionate as Mamma’s canary pecking at a cherry hung between the bars of his cage. The idea was so silly⁠—so⁠—oh! It made her feel hysterical. She said, to stop her thoughts:

“Lily! Be an angel and make some lemonade. I’m dead with this heat.”

Lily pretended for a moment that she couldn’t stop laughing; but seeing that May was all through, she answered amiably:

“I will if you’ll come with me and ask Martha for the lemons. She’s cross as two sticks having company to tea on such a hot day.”

They went off together, just in time, for Victor could no longer hold in his sobs, and they burst loudly on the empty schoolroom. Mamma was going to marry Mr. Lacey! The idea had never entered his head, and the shock was terrific. Between the forces of life that like a wave lifted Mamma and Mr. Lacey before toppling over and submerging such little in-the-way creatures as himself, and the power of the midsummer sun, that had poured itself all morning on his bare head, he was unbearably shaken. Sobbing, he leaned from the window and was sick into the fern bed far below.

Out in the steaming heat of the “truck patch” Maggie was picking raspberries. It was so hot. The grape leaves, green on one side, pale grey suede on the other, that she had just picked to line the raspberry baskets, were already limp. There was a singing sound in her ears, and now and then blackness and a bursting of bloodred stars floated before her eyes.

She knew from the way Mamma was acting that she was going to marry Mr. Lacey. She had been so shy and smiling, looking like a happy little girl. She had even tried to tell Maggie something, after Mr. Lacey’s coachman brought over a note this morning, but Maggie, fiercely loyal to Papa, had been forbiddingly silent and sullen.

“That little lady-killer to take Papa’s place!” she thought bitterly, desperately. And, yet even to her who loved him so, Papa had grown far away and dim⁠—a dear dream that faded even as she tried to remember.

The moist heat rolled over her like waves. Two cabbage butterflies, one pure white, one faintly veined with green, a Mr. Lacey and a Mrs. Campion of the insect world, quivered over the raspberry bushes, and a dust-colored toad gave a languid hop as she nearly stepped on him, but no other creatures were in sight anywhere; humans were in their darkened houses, birds in their shadowy green ones. Pushing the hair up from her wet forehead with the back of her wrist, Maggie went on picking raspberries for Mr. Lacey’s tea.