from the time she first heard it years ago

Waitstill's heart beat faster as she neared the Boynton house. She had never so much as seen Ivory's mother for years. How would she be met? Who would begin the conversation, and what direction would it take? What if Mrs. Boynton should refuse to talk to her at all? She walked slowly along the lane until she saw a slender, gray-clad figure stooping over a flower-bed in front of the cottage. The woman raised her head with a fawn-like gesture that had something in it of timidity rather than fear, picked some loose bits of green from the ground, and, quietly turning her back upon the on coming stranger, disappeared through the open front door. There could be no retreat on her own part now, thought Waitstill. She wished for a moment that she had made this first visit under Ivory's protection, but her idea had been to gain Mrs. Boynton's confidence and have a quiet friendly talk, such a one as would be impossible in the presence of a third person. Approaching the steps, she called through the doorway in her clear voice: "Ivory asked me to come and see you one day, Mrs. Boynton. I am Waitstill Baxter, the little girl on Town House Hill that you used to know." Mrs. Boynton came from an inner room and stood on the threshold. The name "Waitstill" had always had a charm for her ears, from the time she first heard it years ago, until it fell from Ivory's lips this summer; and again it caught her fancy. "'WAITSTILL!"' she repeated softly; "'WAITSTILL!' Does Ivory know you?" "We've known each other for ever so long; ever since we went to the brick school together when we were girl and boy. And when I was a child my stepmother brought me over here once on an errand and Ivory showed me a humming-bird's nest in that lilac bush by the door." Mrs. Boynton smiled "Come and look!" she whispered. "There is always a humming-bird's nest in our lilac. How did you remember?" The two women approached the bush and Mrs. Boynton carefully parted the leaves to show the dainty morsel of a home thatched with soft gray-green and lined with down. "The birds have flown now," she said. "They were like little jewels when they darted off in the sunshine."