I
"Plain Anne"
RUSILLA spread her arms on the wide stone coping of the crumbling wall, to hide her face, and the utter despair of her attitude chilled me. The orchard was cool and green and beautiful. The thrushes and linnets and blackbirds held their deafening spring carnival in the red thorn and the sycamore. Drusilla wore a linen gown as blue as her eyes, or the sky between the boughs of the Morella cherry shadowing our quiet corner, but for me the sun had gone in. With my clouded hopes the brightness of the day, too, had clouded over.
"What does it all mean?" I asked sternly. "I can't believe that you have merely been amusing yourself."
Her face was hidden.
3
