Free Beauty for Ashes by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

didn’t seem to be doing anything about it here, just mooning along through the days, sorrowing through the nights, getting black rings under her eyes, a sorrowful droop to her mouth. How was she ever to bear life again?
    For three days, except when she could persuade Emily Hastings to let her help in some household duty, she spent most of her time on the front porch reading.
    The second day she heard whistling, and it cheered her a little. It wasn’t like any whistling she had ever heard before, not jazzy nor half crooning as was the crazy music at home. It was clear, sweet notes like a bird in the early morning, and sweet quaint tunes that she had never heard before, though occasionally there was a melody she recognized from some great symphony. The whistler was familiar with fine music—that was evident. Sometimes there was a bit of Scotch melody and then hymn tunes, whistled with such perfect rhythm that one could almost hear words with the melody.
    Whoever was whistling was working just out of sight behind the big white farmhouse that stood a little back from the road, diagonally across the highway. She heard the sound of a saw and a hammer—good, strong, sturdy blows—driving a nail of proportions into wood. It made a musical ringing that chimed well with the whistling. Later there came the ring from a heavy roller going over smooth ground and a little tinkle each time it turned as if some metal fragments were caught within the cylinder and were striking against the iron. Not that she reasoned this out. She was not familiar with saws and hammers and rollers and their work. Such things had not intimately touched her life. But an inner sense told her that somebody over there was doing something in which he was interested, and enjoying the work. Without realizing it, that cheery whistle comforted her. It was probably that elderly gray-haired man she had seen working on the farm across the road, though it sounded like a young whistle.
    But Gloria had discovered
Lorna Doone
, and was deep in the thrills of romance and adventure. She did not stop to think about the whistler except to be glad that he was there making cheery noises.
    The third day, however, she had come to the end of her book, and was lying back thinking it over, all its sweetness and sadness, beauty and tragedy, comparing it with her own life, realizing how different her fiancé had been from the hero in the story, feeling those terrible tears in her heart again, feeling an almost desperation.
    Her father had not come yet. Instead, there was a letter saying that he was involved in most important matters in the office, which it would be disastrous for him to leave, and suggesting again that she come home. Her mother, he said, was interested in getting up a drive for welfare and very much wanted her home to help. She sent word that there was much that could be done quietly, and that no one would criticize her for going into charitable work. He said that he did not see how he could get back to her before Sunday, or even the middle of next week, and it was all owing to some unexpected turn of affairs in European finance. Gloria just couldn’t have been more down and out than she was that afternoon. She was looking into a stretch of endless days ahead of her, in which the sweet quiet she had so enjoyed at first had palled exceedingly upon her, and yet there was no place in the world to which she desired to go instead.
    It was just when things had reached this stage that she heard the front gate in the white picket fence swing open and clang back on its noisy hinges and, looking up in panic, saw a very good-looking young man with a tennis racket under his arm coming toward her.
    She arose precipitately from the hammock to beat a hasty retreat, but he was there before she could get away.
    “Please don’t go yet,” said the young man, smiling pleasantly. “I came over to speak to you. I’m Murray MacRae from across the road. I’ve only been home a few days,