Sunday noon
in summer
The body was carried to the mortuary . With a resounding oath the foreman drove his folk back to work and set all that rolling activity going once more . The passers-by hastened away ; and the saw screeched , the chisel tapped , the hammer banged , the bricks were hauled up on high and the gorgeous building , the pride of a metropolis , stood resplendent in the glaring white mid-day sun , as if nothing had happened . Her life flowed on as a little brook flows under grass on a Sunday noon in summer , flowed on in calm seclusion , far from the bustle of the crowd , secretly , steadily , uninterrupted save by ever-recurring little incidents , peacefully approaching old age . She sat in her little white room , behind the muslin curtains , making lace . Her cottage stood a little way back from the street , shining behind a neatly-raked flower-garden . The door was always shut and the curtains carefully drawn .