They were now roaming about the orchard with Mavis, hunting for
a coolness that did not exist anywhere except in one's memory, and
their voices sounded at intervals languidly.
More and more color was now perceptible; distances were extending;
lines of meager flowers, crimson and blue as well as white, showed in
a border of the kitchen garden; and the sky, seeming to lift and
brighten, was a faint orange above the horizon and a most delicate
rose tint toward the zenith--so that till half-past eight, or later,
one had the illusion that the night was going to be more brightly
lighted than the day.
Nobody had much appetite for supper, but they all sat a long while at
the table, glad to rest if they could not eat, hoping that when they
moved from their chairs they would find the temperature lower within
the house walls than outside them. Mavis gave little oppressed sighs
as she fanned her jolly round face and broad matronly chest with a
copy of the _Courier_. Ethel, who to-night seemed an extraordinarily
cumbrous awkward creature, flumped the dishes down on the table and
shuffled away on her big flat feet. Norah glided to and fro, now here,
now there, pouring out milk and water for the children, and ducking
prettily when a bat came close to her white face and black hair.
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