This corner was a wing, set at right angles to the main building,
and as she rounded it she found herself at the edge of an inner
court. In the opposite wing, looking straight across the court, was
a lighted room with a long French window opening directly on the
shaven turf, and in the center of this window there sat in a high,
carved chair a very old woman. She was carefully dressed in deep
black, with pure white ruffles at her neck and around her shrunken
wrists, and a lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were on a
carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp, set on a slender table
at her side, threw a stream of light across the court. Her face,
lined with countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book in her
lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady voice--the
passionless, almost terrifying voice of great and weary age:
"_Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all
generations._
"_Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou
hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting
to everlasting thou art God._"
Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path of lamplight. It marked a
bed of yellow tulips with a broad band; they stood motionless, as if
carved in ivory.
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