CHAPTER XXI.
"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in the light through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new." EDMUND WALLER.
One day Pamela walked down to Hopetoun to lunch with Mrs.Hope.

Augusta had gone away on a short visit and Pamela had promised to spend as much time as possible with her mother.
"You won't be here much longer," Mrs.Hope had said, "so spend as much time with me as you can spare, and we'll talk books and quote poetry, and," she had finished defiantly, "I'll miscall my neighbours if I feel inclined." It was February now, and there was a hint of spring in the air.

The sun was shining as if trying to make up for the days it had missed, the green shoots were pushing daringly forth, and a mavis in a holly-bush was chirping loudly and cheerfully.

To-morrow they might be plunged back into winter, the green things nipped and discouraged, the birds silent--but to-day it was spring.
Pamela lingered by Tweedside listening to the mavis, looking back at the bridge spanning the river, the church steeple high against the pale blue sky, the little town pouring its houses down to the water's edge.
Hopetoun Woods were still bare and brown, but soon the larches would get their pencils, the beeches would unfurl tiny leaves of living green, and the celandines begin to poke their yellow heads through the carpet of last year's leaves.
Mrs.Hope was sitting close to the window that looked out on the Hopetoun Woods.

The spring sunshine and the notes of the mavis had brought to her a rush of memories.
"For what can spring renew More fiercely for us than the need of you." Her knitting lay on her lap, a pile of new books stood on the table beside her, but her hands were idly folded, and she did not look at the books, did not even notice the sunshine; her eyes were with her heart, and that was far away across the black dividing sea in the last resting-places of her three sons.