A young woman leaned over the outer gate. The rain had ceased, and the wind came softly with a touch of spring. It would be clear on the morrow, the girl thought as she looked up from the shadows of the Cove to where the cloud-broken sunlight flashed and faded on the mountain tops. A clear spring day, and, as the warm wind swept by, her fair cheeks flushed with gladness for the coming spring.

The winter had been hard, and for the first time the Warrens had felt themselves poor. This girl's father had been killed a few months before, and she and her grandparents had had to fight through the cold weather alone. And now, as she waited for the cows, the touch of warmth in the wind brought to her mind a new problem—the planting. Some help would have to be hired, and where was the money? They had bacon, and apples, and potatoes that could be sold—if she could take them to the town on top the mountain. The color flamed into her face; she had never “peddled” in her life! Her grandfather was held fast by rheumatism, and her grandmother would far rather starve than go on such an errand.

Presently a cow-bell clanked, and down the mountain-side, in dignified procession, came the rough, long-legged, patient-eyed cows. The girl roused herself with a sigh, and, holding the big gate open, remembered one more article that could be sold—butter.

She fetched two wooden piggins, white with scouring, and some fodder, then brought the cows in, one at a time, to the inner lot. She moved with the deliberation of age, and milked with patient sedateness. This quietness was a class habit, but increased in this girl's case through her having lived always with old people; and now the heavy responsibilities that crowded upon her seemed to have banished all youthfulness.

The Warrens had always been well-to-do, making at home almost everything they needed. After his sons left him the old man had been quite able to carry on the place, and before his strength failed his eldest son had returned with his motherless baby, Hannah. So there had been little need for money until now, when, her father dead and her grandfather disabled, Hannah needed to hire help. She might have paid in kind, but everybody that she knew made all they needed. The only people she had ever heard of who bought everything and saved nothing, were these new people on the mountain, who were held throughout the country to be strangely “lackin'.” Old Mrs. Warren pronouncing them “darn fools, a-settin' round with books in their hands.”

The milking done, Hannah took the pails into the kitchen. With the same lack of haste she stirred the fire under the kettle, opened the oven to look at the corn bread, strained the milk, then taking up an axe went into the back yard. Her face grew graver as she looked at the wood pile; she would have to go for more to-morrow, and she sighed as she pulled a log into position for cutting.

There was an outlet from all this. She could marry her cousin Si Durket. She would rather cut wood all day! And the axe swung into the air with an ease and swiftness scarcely to be looked for from a woman.

No good would ever come to Si. She rested on the axe as she turned the log with her foot. Peddling would be better than Si; hiring out— starving—anything would be better. Yet, if something were not done very soon, she would have to marry him, or let the old people want. Mrs. Wilson, from the far side of the Cove, went up to the mountain to peddle—she could go with her. Mrs. Wilson was a creature much scorned by Mrs. Warren, still she knew the ways at the University, and could direct a beginner. It was worth thinking of. Gathering up the wood, she went into the house to her grandmother's room.

It was low, and the walls, finished up to the rafters with wood, were painted gray, spattered with white. A pine bedstead, with tall posts, and piled into a dumpling with feather beds, filled one corner. In another corner there stood a high chest of drawers, above which hung a spotted looking glass and some peacock feathers. A spinning-wheel, a small table full of dusty odds and ends, a large rocking-chair, covered with a patchwork quilt, and a few splint-bottomed chairs, finished the furnishing of the room. In the rocking-chair, close to the great fireplace, sat an old man, and an old woman stood near a window catching the last light on her work.

She had been a handsome woman once, and, like Hannah, was tall; but here the likeness ended. Mrs. Warren's face was sharp and hard, the girl's face was grave and strong; Mrs. Warren's eyes were keen, while Hannah's eyes were thoughtful, almost sad. Further, Mrs. Warren's temper and tongue were famous, while Hannah seemed still and gentle. Perhaps time was needed to reveal Hannah; perhaps the temper of her grandmother had made her esteem peace as the greatest good. Each son had had to take his wife away, and Hannah's father had only come back after his wife's death, when, seeing that his father needed him, he stayed. A gentle, patient man, he could put up with the temper his mother, whose maiden name had been Durket, was proud to call the “Durket sperret.” With regard to his child, he knew that no real harm would come to any creature absolutely dependent on his mother. “Her own” meant a great deal to Mrs. Warren. Her sons' wives she had looked on as aliens. The kitchen stove, introduced by one of these unworthies, had caused the final breaking up of the family. The young woman had declared the open fireplace to be old-fashioned, and her husband bought the stove. The “Durket sperret” could not stand this, and the young people had to go, but not the stove; Mrs. Warren kept that, and for the future vented much of her superfluous wrath on it.

As Hannah entered, Mrs. Warren turned sharply:

“I wonder you don't git tired a-playin' nigger, Hannah Warren,” was her greeting. The girl put down and arranged the wood before she answered:

“Thar is wuss things,” then stood looking down into the fire. Straight as a young poplar, with the grace and roundness of perfect strength and youth in every curve, Hannah, in her scant black frock, was dowered with a beauty rare in any class. A grave, clear-cut face, waving brown hair taken straight back and twisted in a knot, a full throat that showed exquisitely white where the little faded shawl fell away from it, and hands that, if hard and brown, were very shapely.

Her grandmother looked at her intently as she stood there, and grumbled a little under her breath.

“Ain't you none better, Gramper?” Hannah asked pityingly of the old man, bent nearly double in his chair.

“I'm some easier,” he answered patiently, “but I'm tore up a-steddyin' 'bout the crap.”

“The crap wouldn't count if Hannah had a shavin' o' sense,” the old woman struck in sharply.

“Supper's ready, Granny,” Hannah said, and left the room.

“You pesters Hannah moren human, Mertildy,” the old man suggested mildly; “an' she's a good gal.”

“I reckon I knows my own flesh an' blood, John Warren,” his wife retorted; “ an' but for you, I'd larn her some sense, or know why. Si Durket's my own brether's son, an' as good as Hannah Warren will ever git. He's got a plenty, an' is free-handed an' hearty, an' he'll do to look at too. He's a Durket through an' through.”

“All the same, Mertildy, Hannah don't favor Si.”

“Don't favor Si! You makes me weak, John Warren! Do a steer favor a yoke? but thet's all a steer or a yoke is made fur. Gals is the same; an' all yokes is jest alike as fur as I kin see.”

Mr. Warren shook his head, “You've missed the furrer, Mertildy,” he said; “ 'tain't the yoke, hit's the tother steer thet's the trouble. The yoke is fur all, one way or anether, an' we gits our necks sorely galded, thet's true; but hit's the tother steer thet mostly gits us, an' Hannah shan't be yoked ginst her will. You worn't, Mertildy.”

“I reckon the difference would abeen wore out by now, anyhow,” Mrs. Warren answered ungraciously, “an' I'd abeen jest as well pleased”; and she left the room.

For more than a year Si Durket had been courting his cousin Hannah. Hannah's father and grandfather had supported her in saving no, agreeing that a man who could strike his mother and curse his old father, was not to be desired; but Mrs. Warren championed Si vigorously. That a woman lived who could refuse a Durket, she would not believe. A Durket who would be rich when his father died, for there was much land and only two brothers to divide it; further, a Durket who had been to school. Mrs. Warren had a great contempt for education, nevertheless she urged Si's “larnin” as a point in his favor.

Another potent cause for Mrs. Warren's earnestness was that the wife of Si's brother Dave, a young woman from a town, had openly laughed at Si's choice of Hannah, a country girl who had never been out of Lost Cove a half dozen times in her life, and who was poor compared with some girls Si might have won.

These considerations did not sway Si, but he was keen enough to repeat this speech to his Aunt Warren, who in her rage declared that Hannah should marry Si, if only “to down thet sassy hussy, Minervy!” And Si, seeing how work and poverty were pressing the girl, felt his hopes rise.

Mr. Warren was troubled for Hannah in the present crisis, still he felt that any work was better than marrying a man she despised. Hard work made rest sweet, he thought, as he sat by the fire weary and disabled; made any food seem good, and left a peaceful satisfaction when the day was done, when one could smoke one's pipe and think of the long dark furrows, and the well-stacked wood-pile, and the cattle penned from harm, and think that, when the winter came, there would be a plenty and to spare. Ay, work was a good friend. But now his son was gone, and he could do nothing. It was hard on the girl.

“He knocked hisn's mammy—he's hard.” The musing ended aloud, and Hannah, coming in with his supper, heard him.

“I'll never tuck him,” she said, in her soft slow voice, as she put the cup and plate on a chair near the old man. “Si kin cuss, an' Granny kin blate, I'll tuck hit, but I'll never tuck Si.” She kneeled on the hearth with her hands fallen together in front of her. “An' 'bout the crap, Gramper, I 'llows I kin git thet Dock Wilson what's come to the Cove to he'p me do the plowin', an' Granny kin drap, an' I kin kivver.”

“Don't say nothin' to Granny 'bout drappin', chile,” the old man said, with patient experience in his voice, “hit 'll jest gie her anether handle to grind on.”

“Jest so,” Hannah responded; “but, Gramper, if Dock's like hisn's stepmammy he'll strike fur high wages.”

“Thet's true as true, an' thar ain't no money.”

“Thar's things to sell,” Hannah suggested; “I could tuck ole Bess, an' pack truck to the 'versity.”

“Peddle!” the old man said, in a lowered tone; “a Warren woman peddle?”

“Hit ain't no sin.”

“No, but no Warren woman ain't never peddled yit—never yit!”

“You said onest that I could go,” the girl persisted; “an' hits peddlin', or hirin out, or marryin' Si, Gramper.”

“That's true, gal; but I hates hit.”

“No moren I do, Gramper.” Then hearing a chair pushed back in the kitchen, she rose. “I'll hev to git wood to-morrow,” she added, “but I'll go on Friday. Don't say nothin' to Granny.”

Mr. Warren nodded, and Hannah, taking the cup and plate, reached the door just as her grandmother entered.

“The cawfee's 'bout out,” she said, “an' the sugar's right low too.”

“I knows hit, Granny.”

“An' I can't git on 'thout cawfee an' sugar.”

At the time this story opens, the railway station, known as Sewanee, consisted of a few shops, the post-office, and one or two small houses, built about a barren square. From this a broad road led to the “University,” and the other end of Sewanee. Up this road the butcher and shoemaker had planted some locust trees in front of their shops, and beyond them the confectioner had laid a stone pavement for the length of his lot, and planted some maple trees, that, in the autumn, burned like flames of fire. Beyond the confectioner's the road was in the woods for a short space, then more houses. About a half mile from the station this road ended in another road that crossed it at right angles, and up and down this the University town was built.

Between the houses, between the public buildings, wherever any space was left free from carpenters and stone masons, the forest marched up and claimed its own, while the houses looked as if they had been convinced of their obtrusiveness, and had crept as far back as possible, leaving their fences as protection to the forest, and not as the sign of a clearing.

Very still and bare the little place looked on the gray March morning, when, under Mrs. Wilson's guidance, Hannah made her entrance as a peddler. Down the road, beaten hard by the rain, and dotted here and there with clear little pools of water, Hannah led old Bess, bearing the long bags, in the ends of which were bestowed the apples and potatoes, the bucket of butter being fastened to the saddle.

They had not stopped at the station, for Mrs. Wilson said the people in the town paid better prices.

“They don't know no better than to tuck frostbit 'taters,” she explained, “an' they'll give most anything fur butter jest now. All the 'versity boys is come back, an' butter's awful sca'ce. To tell the truth,” pushing her long bonnet back, “thar ain't much o' anything to eat right now. What with layin' an' scratchin' through the winter fur a livin', the hens is wore out, an' chickens ain't in yit, an' these 'versity women is jest pestered to git sumpen fur the boys.”

Hannah listened in silence. She had her own ideas about trading, and besides had very scant respect for Mrs. Wilson, either mentally or morally. She knew that her things were good, but she was determined to ask only a fair price for them. It was bad to cheat people because they were simple or “in a push.” She was in a push herself, and felt sorry for them.

“An' ax a leetle moren you 'llows to git,” Mrs. Wilson went on, “kase they'll allers tuck some off. Thar air a few that jest pays what you says, or don't tuck none, an' I axes them a fa'r price.” They stopped at a gate as she finished, and she directed Hannah to “hitch the nag an' stiffen up.”

“I ain't feared,” Hannah answered, while she made old Bess fast, “but I ain't usen to peddlin', an' I don't like hit, nuther.”

Mrs. Wilson laughed. “Youuns Granny keeps on a-settin' you up till nothin' ain't good enough,” she said. “Lots o' folks as good as ary Warren hes been a peddlin' a many a year.”

It had been a successful day, and as Hannah rode through the falling shadows, with Mrs. Wilson mounted behind her, her heart felt light. She had the coffee and the sugar, besides two dollars toward the plowing, and three bushels of apples engaged, making five dollars—to her a fortune, And this success would mitigate the displeasure of her grandmother, unless talk from the Durkets reached her; that would stop everything.

But above all, she had looked into a new world, and her life seemed to have changed. All the fear of Sewanee was gone. The people up there were strange; that is, different from any people she had known, but she liked them. She was anxious to see that “Miss Agnes” again. She would take more potatoes to-morrow, and some meat; there was no telling how much she might make.

“Where are you off to, Max?” The young man addressed was adjusting a shabby gown with much precision.

“To Miss Welling's,” Max answered, as with the same care he put on his square cap.

“If I had such a fossil gown,” his companion went on from the bed where, though the day was young, he was lounging with a cigarette between his lips, “and such a crummy mortar-board, I'd not put them on with such solemnity and jurisdiction.’ ”

“If you could show such a cap and gown, Melville, you'd not be a ‘Squab’ ”; and taking up some books, Max left the room.

It was early, but formal visiting hours were ignored in the village of Sewanee, and people kept open house, and “dropped in” on each other when they liked. So Max dropped in and found Miss Welling sewing.

“I have brought the book I spoke of,” he began, without further greeting. “This poet ought to capture you, to convert you to himself, for he makes one long to live bravely.”

“Or die bravely,” Agnes suggested.

“To live is harder. Death cannot be dodged, so there is no use in being afraid; but many things in life can be dodged. I often wonder if education makes any difference in the way one meets death. Is it easier for these country people to let life go than for us?”

“They live like moles,” Agnes said, “in comparison we are squirrels; and I think they take a pride in dying. I think the ignorant die calmly because they do not know, and the educated because they do know.”

“What?”

“What? why—why, everything; which comprehensive everything is, after all, very limited. Still I believe in education. I know that educated people are happier and better.”

“Whew!” and Max pulled his mustache slowly. “If I were sure of that, I should this day begin a crusade with a ‘blue-backed’ spelling-book as my banner. And you,” leaning forward a little, “your duty is to begin at once to teach. If once we realize what is best to be done for our fellows, we must do it.”

The door opened and Hannah stood before them with a sack of apples across one shoulder. “Hardy,” she said, her face lighting up as she caught sight of Agnes; “har's youuns apples.”

“I am glad to see you,” and Agnes held out her hand. Max looked from one to the other curiously, then placed a chair near the fire for Hannah. “It is cold,” he said. Hannah looked at him a moment, then taking off her long bonnet, sat down on the edge of the chair.

“Yes, and she has come a long way,” Agnes answered for her, then turned away to call the servant. Max took up the bag and followed Agnes into the next room, and she going still further, he returned to his place. Hannah watched him until he came back, then looked at the fire, and Max watched her. It was a beautiful face as he saw it now with the firelight on it, and he spoke to her.

“What Cove do you come from?” he asked.

“Lost Cove.”

“Then you must be connected with Mr. John Warren, and with his son?”

“He's my Gramper,” she answered, in a surprised voice; “and hisn's son, Joshaway?”

“Yes; I met them out hunting last October.”

“Joshaway were my Par”—the voice faltered, and the eyes sought the fire. “He were killed in November.”

Successful as before, Hannah was happy, for, besides a little bag of flour, she had more money than she intended to show even to Mr. Warren. If he knew of this surplus he might reveal it in order to save her from hard words; and if Mrs. Warren knew, it would be stored away and she be left as helpless as before. She had made a long détour to reach the Wilsons' and engage Dock to plow, as she had the money to pay him. She would say four dollars, the rest she must save for other purposes.

Once more on the main road, she urged old Bess on. There was much excitement in her position, and she was anxious yet afraid. How would it be possible to see Mr. Warren alone first? She stopped the horse. “If I keeps on bein' afeard o' Granny,” she said aloud, “I'll do sumpen rale mean some day.” Old Bess was urged on again. “I'll go right in an' face her, crooked chance or straight chance.” She dropped the reins on the horse's neck, and took the old deer-skin purse from her pocket. It was quite full with her two days' gains, and she drew a long sigh. She took out all the money save the four dollars intended for Dock's wages, and tying it up in her glove, hid it in her bosom, then put the purse back in her pocket.

“Hit looks right sneakin', but I must save hit 'ginst Si.”

Reaching the gate, she unsaddled the horse with unusual celerity, and shouldering the saddle and the little bag of flour, went quickly into the house.

It had been a long and weary day to the old man. Hannah's errand was a bitter pill to Mrs. Warren. She had never done such a thing in her life, nor was it customary with women of her station. In those early days, “the man who would let his women-folks peddle was a poor sort of man.” But the concealment of the expedition had wounded Mrs. Warren also.

Often she had complained that she did not understand Hannah, for though she usually held herself very much aloof, Hannah would yet do work and associate with people that shocked Mrs. Warren, and the irritation caused by what she deemed the girl's peculiarities was a very constant thing.

“Dock Wilson!” Mrs. Wilson stood in the open door of her small log-house. Dock turned and looked from where he sat on the wood-pile whittling, but did not answer, and she raised her voice, “Dinner's done, an' I wish you'd come!”

Dock went on with the whittling, whistling softly. He was tall and fair, with a grave, kind face and his eyes were true. His stepmother, Lizer Wilson, ruled him “to the last notch,” people said, but Dock had his own code and went his quiet way, with few words or friends. He had not been in the Cove long. When old man Wilson was dying, he sent for this son; and since his father's death Dock had worked faithfully for his stepmother and her two boys.

In Mrs. Warren's eyes he was contemptible. “Any man that kin stan' Lizer Wilson must hev cotton insides,” she would say conclusively, and Hannah began to think of Dock with sympathy.

Monday was bright, and only cold enough to remind people that frost might still come to harass them. An exquisite morning, with that “sense of tears in mortal things” that seems ever to veil the glory of the spring.

Agnes Welling always declared that she liked Sewanee much better in winter than in the rush of summer gayety. Question her, and it would be found that by “winter” she meant from the end of August to the first of July. From the crisply cool days of September, when the first touch of crimson is on the tall black gums, and the blue gentian bells bloom by the clear, brown streams; when the white shell flowers, like fallen stars, look up from among the shadowy ferns, it is as a dream—a dream where the air is sweeter than life; where the sky melts into illimitable depths of blue, and the purple haze, like the shadow of light, spreads over all the land. Then, in the great, still forests, the leaves float down softly, tenderly to death; the nuts fall—the squirrels drop from limb to limb—the brilliant lizards bask in the last warm sun, and the partridges whir up and away from their hiding in the dry, brown leaves. Through the long white winter, when the trees bend with the weight of ice, and the snow hushes all to the silence of death—when the pulse of nature beats so slow, and only the cold winds cry and move. Through all the sweet waking of the flowers, and the fresh budding of the trees—through the glory of June to the glare of July—all this Agnes called “winter.” And leaning on the gate this Monday morning, she thought, “Only to live is enough.”

“A penny for your thoughts!” and Max Dudley joined her.

“I am mooning over the seasons, wondering which I like best.”

“Which is the saddest? Tell me that, and I will tell you which you like best. Young people, ignorant of sorrow, have usually a leaning toward the melancholy.”

Mrs. Warren's attack seemed to have taken all hope out of Hannah's life, for opposition to the old woman's will might mean death. She longed to go away and work, and send the money back, but she could not. For years her father and grandfather had lived lives of purest self-abnegation, and as they had borne so she must wait and bear; and some words her father used to say seemed now to have been the keynote of his life, “Hit's easier to hurt than to heal,” he would say, and leave the house to smoke his pipe outside. And now, as she rode through the glancing lights and shadows of the sweet spring day, she had a great longing to tell her father that she understood him now, and would follow in his footsteps. “I'll do jist what he done, kase if I kills Granny, all he done is gone fur nuthin', an' what he planted shell be gethered.” She had been taught by example, and the lesson had gone very deep.

Mrs. Warren had refused to talk the night before, and this morning had spoken only to find fault and to order the doctor. This would diminish Hannah's savings sorely, and there was an unacknowledged suspicion in Hannah's mind that the physician had been called on purpose to absorb this money. In this, however, she was mistaken, and this demand for medical attention was a pledge of safety. Mrs. Warren was far more afraid of having another fit than Hannah was of causing it. The thought of death coming in this sudden way terrified her, and she was pitifully eager to avoid it. All her life she had been superstitious about the number three, and now saw death in the third fit.

She had dressed herself and put things to rights as usual; then, taking her knitting, sat down near the window, watching, with miserable but silent anxiety, for Hannah. She was feverishly anxious that things should seem as at other times, and the deprecating tenderness of her husband was dreadful to her. “For the Lord's sake, John Warren, quit a-whinin'!” she cried nervously; “you needn't be afeared that I'm agoin' to hev any mo' fits. But Hannah's got mo' sperret 'an any Warren I ever seen. Hit's better to git mud on you by prancin' 'an by crawlin', but she ain't a-goin' to prance on me.”

Hannah found things so much as usual on her return that Sunday began to seem like a bad dream. “The doctor's a-comin',” she said; then, as Mrs. Warren neither looked up nor answered, she turned to leave the room.

“Ain't thar nothin' mo' to tell?” Mrs. Warren said sharply. She was anxious to be diverted, and angry because she knew that, in her absence, Hannah would have much to tell Mr. Warren. Hannah came back and knelt in front of the fire. “Miss Agnes were leanin' on the gate, an' Mr. Dudley,” she began; “an' I tole 'em I come fur the doctor kase you were sick, an' they were mighty sorry; an' Mr. Dudley says if thar were anything he could do, jest to let him know.”

“I'd be rayly proud to see Mr. Dudley,” Mr. Warren said, as Hannah paused; “when he talks I think I'm hearin' the paper read.”

“An' the doctor axed a-many a question,” she went on, “an' he prophesied thet you'd be up 'ginst I got home, an' you is.” The old woman listened eagerly; if the doctor could tell that much from questions, perhaps he could cure her entirely. She felt much happier, and answered Hannah's next question amiably.

“Yes, you kin make a few biscuit, an' make some rale strong cawfee; I reckon the doctor 'll tuck a swaller.”

From inertia solely, Mrs. Warren had fallen into the habit of staying at home, until at last she looked upon it as a virtue. From this she came to rail mercilessly on those whose habits were different, calling them “slip arounds” and “light heels,” and other unpleasant names that made her own going impossible, except in cases of necessity. But this journey was such a necessity, and Mrs. Warren enjoyed it in spite of its occasion, or, rather, because of its occasion, for nothing makes people so important as affliction. The Warrens and the Durkets stood on the same social level, and as the two aristocratic lines met in Mrs. John Warren, she was regarded as a very important person, indeed; and, assisted by her temper and tongue, she kept people greater than Lizer Wilson in much awe. Of course it would be noised abroad that Mrs. John Warren was coming, and this would insure a gathering of the “upper ten” from all the valleys. People would come even from the “Beech settlement.” The Budds would be there: not as rich as the Durkets, but more traveled, for they had been not only to Nashville and Chattanooga, but one member of the family had penetrated as far as Atlanta on the one side and Memphis on the other. Thus, although without the blood of the Durkets, the Budds had achieved a position that in some respects rivaled theirs. Then Dave Durket, Jr., had married Minerva Budd.

Mrs. Warren knew that she was going where she would be treated with some distinction, and was pleasantly excited. She shuddered once or twice when she remembered that Jane Harner had probably spread the report of Hannah's peddling, and as the exploit could not be denied, she must tell them that Hannah had gone to visit a friend in the University. It was true that Mrs. Warren had a contempt for Sewanee, and so far had ignored it; but the Sewanee people could not be despised save for their thriftlessness, born of love of books; for no one could prove that they were not as well born as any family in the valley. They behaved as if they were above their neighbors, but this mistake, she felt, came of that same pride of knowledge. Young Mrs. David Durket, Mrs. Warren's dearest foe, was a graduate of a country college, and thought herself learned, but she knew no Sewanee people, and if Mrs. Warren could emphasize the fact that Hannah had friends among these new people, who ate and drank books, it would be pain to Mrs. Dave. Further, she could say that one combining Durket and Warren blood could do what she pleased. She went so far as to acknowledge to herself that she had made a mistake in railing at the girl, and in not presenting this view of things to Si; for Mrs. Warren still clung to the thought of the Durket alliance. This visit could be turned to good account, if used properly, and enable her to rectify many things. She had never been able to prove that her brother had cheated her out of her share of the property, but she knew that it had happened only because of her absence. Her brother had taken the position that his father did not want the property divided, and that he, David Durket, would, in his turn, leave the land intact to one son. And Si thought, and the community thought, and Mrs. Warren was sure, that the heir would be Si; for the other son, David, was weak-minded.

But David had married a woman, Minerva Budd, who was far from weak-minded. She never resented the opinion that Si should be the heir; instead, she made much of Si; almost as much as she made of the old man, who never before had received such flattering attentions.

It was a long, rough ride across the mountains, and Mrs. Warren was tired before her horse began to bog along the red clay valley, and was thankful when at last she arrived.

Nothing seemed changed since her girlhood. The fences seemed the same, with about the same number of rotten and of missing rails. She seemed to see the same cows and horses— the same stumps. She could swear to the stumps—for who ever wasted time on a stump? The inclosures about the house were absolutely unchanged, only that the apple trees looked a little older. The branch was full, as always in the spring, and she could have declared that the geese had not changed even a feather.

Si came out and helped her down, looking supernaturally solemn. Mrs. Dave waited in the doorway. Her front hair painfully frizzed, long earrings in her ears, her stumpy fingers much beringed—and her jaws working patiently and doggedly on a piece of “chewing gum,” for, in spite of her travels and mental attainments, she had retained that barbarism.