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I

The cocks were crowing froie opened her eyes, clear shrill music, answered from the hill as by their echoes, and the yews outside were alive with the dawn-chirping of the sparrows

She lay there quite quietly, watching under her tired eyelids, through the still unshuttered s, the splendid glow, seen behind the twisted stems in front and the slender fairy forest of birches on the further side of the garden Immediately outside thelay the path, deep in yew-needles, the ground-ivy beyond, and the wet lawn glistening in the strange

She had no need to reht That was Laurie who lay opposite in a deep sleep, his head on his arularly; and this was the little sainst his coht on the hearth, she noticed She got out of her chair, softly and stiffly, for she felt intolerably languid and tired Besides, she must not disturb the boy So she went down on her knees, and, with infinite craft, picked out a coal or two from the fender and dropped them neatly into the core of red-heat that still sment of wood detached itself and fell with a sharp sound; and she knew, even without turning her head, that the boy had awakened There was a faint inarticulate h

Then she turned round

Laurie was lying on his back, his ar at her with a quiet meditative air He appeared no more astonished or perplexed than herself He was a little white-looking and tired in the light of dawn, but his eyes were bright and sure

She rose fro down on him, and he looked back at her There was no need of speech It was one of those moments in which one does not even say that there are no words to use; one just regards the thing, like a stretch of open country It is contemplation, not comment, that is needed

Her eyes wandered away presently, with the saarden outside; and her sloakeningwithin, sent up a little scrap of quotation to be answered

"While it was yet earlythere came to the sepulcher" How did it run? "Mary" Then she spoke

"It is Easter Day, Laurie"