From without, through a half-opened window that let sweet June drift in, echoed sounds of life. Voices of village children sounded along the hedge. Cartwheels rattled. The anvil, early at work, sent up its musical clank-clank-clank to Snug Haven.
From an elm near the broad porch, the sudden melody of a robin, greeting the new day after the night of storm, echoed in hearts now infinitely glad.
THE END
notes
1
This chant, freely translated, bespeaks the horror of the Malay at any admixture with a foreigner, thus: “Let the sparrow mate with but the sparrow only, and the parrot with the parrot only. While a flower is pleasing to man, he wears it. When it fades, man throws it away.”