There was one big
beech there, in particular, which the Old Lady loved for reasons
best known to herself--a great, tall beech with a trunk like
the shaft of a gray marble column and a leafy spread of branches
over the still, golden-brown pool made beneath it by the brook.
It had been a young sapling in the days that were haloed
by the vanished glory of the Old Lady's life.
The Old Lady heard childish voices and laughter afar up the lane
which led to William Spencer's place just above the woods.
William Spencer's front lane ran out to the main road in a
different direction, but this "back lane" furnished a short
cut and his children always went to school that way.
The Old Lady shrank hastily back behind a clump of young spruces.
She did not like the Spencer children because they always seemed
so afraid of her. Through the spruce screen she could see
them coming gaily down the lane--the two older ones in front,
the twins behind, clinging to the hands of a tall, slim, young girl--
the new music teacher, probably. The Old Lady had heard from
the egg pedlar that she was going to board at William Spencer's,
but she had not heard her name.
She looked at her with some curiosity as they drew near--and then,
all at once, the Old Lady's heart gave a great bound and began to beat
as it had not beaten for years, while her breath came quickly and she
trembled violently.
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