D.F.

White, patches of white, lucid, flying the wind blowing, but higher, above the house, above the trees. For a long moment she thought of the wind, sweeping over the Canadian plains, the Great Lakes, high above her head, over the town and on over the Eastern Shore, the salt marshes of Maryland, Virginia, till it blew itself out at last over the empty sea. On the porch nothing stirred. It was a moment suspended, the still center, and she, motionless, without design, a part of design.

Blackbirds

BY ANN WOOSTER

From where she stood she could see the square library tower with its crenelated gray stone battlements. Even after six years at Hampden College, she rarely felt any sentimental sense of belonging. The soul of propriety in the college community, a pleasant and gracious addition to the Dean's annual tea, no one imagined how disconnected she felt, or understood that it was a strong sense of the ephemeral quality of all things that made her vague charm possible. She was considered somewhat of a recluse, rarely entertained, had never chaperoned a college function. There were rumors that she had once been engaged, even married, but no one really knew.

She was still an attractive woman, slender, erect, and wore her excellent clothes well. She dressed, in fact, as a woman whose body has been carefully loved will dress. Her short, light brown hair had as yet no touch of gray, and her cool hazel eyes surveyed the world with a gentle and remorseless humor. She wore little jewelry, but seemed inordinately fond of a handsome jade and silver little finger ring that was almost too heavy for her hand. It had been given to her by a girl called Jinny, with whom she had once lived. Jinny had been an

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