The Nest Builder by Hale, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson

Presently, seeing her languor, Miss Mason insisted Mary should lie down and leave the remaining work to her. The only resting place left was the old studio, where their divan had been replaced. Thither Mary mounted, and lying amidst its dusty disarray, traced in memory the months she had spent there. It had been their first home. Here they had had their first quarrel and their first success, and here had come to her her annunciation. Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home, it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was to go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of the future.

"My grief," exclaimed Miss Mason from the door an hour later. "I told you to go to sleep 'n here you are wide awake and crying!"

Mary smiled shamefacedly.

"I'm just tired, Sparrow, that's all, and have been indulging in the 'vapors.'" She squeezed her friend's hand. "Let's have some lunch."

"It's all ready, and Lily with her hat 'n coat on. Come right downstairs --it's most two o'clock."

Mary jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last time.

"Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!" he called. "Thank God we are getting out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come, dearest." He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his few words of Italian to the janitress, chaffed Miss Mason, and had them all laughing by the time they reached the street. He seemed in the highest spirits, his moods of the last weeks forgotten.

As the car started he kissed his fingers repeatedly to Miss Mason and waved his hat to the inevitable assemblage of small boys.

"The country, darling!" he cried, pressing Mary's hand under the rug. "Farewell to ugliness and squalor! How happy we are going to be!"

Mary's hand pressed his in reply.

V

It was late April. The wooded slopes behind "The Byrdsnest," as Mary had christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest- making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such melodious song as at home in England, but their brilliant plumage was a constant delight to her.