n by the
wayside, unhooking the horses, and baiting them by a low bridge rail that
sloped into the bushes, where they could eat and drink at leisure, before
we reached Pine Ridge. Once there, he dropped me at the Bradford farm,
while he drove westward, along the Ridge, to a consultation with the
local doctor over a complicated broken leg that would not knit.

As I closed the neat white picket gate behind me, and walked slowly
toward the porch, a blaze of yellow on the south side of the red brick
house drew my attention. It was the Forsythia, the great bush of "yellow
bells," of which Horace Bradford had spoken as blooming in advance of any
in the neighbourhood, and for a moment I felt as if I were walking into
the pages of a story-book.

I wielded the heavy brass knocker on the half-door, with diamond-paned
glass top, and paused to look off to where the flower and fruit garden
sloped south and west. Presently, as no one answered the knock, I peered
through the glass, into an open square, that was evidently both hall and
sitting room. In one corner was a chimney place, in which a log burned
lazily, opposite a broad, low window, its shelves filled with flower
pots, near which, in a harp-backed chair, an old lady sat sewing. She
wore a simple black gown, with a small shawl thrown across her shoulders,
and her hair, clear steel colour and white, was held in a loose knot by
an old-fashioned shell comb. In spite of the droop and lines of age (for
Horace Bradford's mother must have been quite seventy), the nose had a
fine, strong Roman curve, and the brow a thoughtful width.

What was she thinking of as she sat there alone, this bright April
afternoon, shaping a garment, with a smile hovering about her lips? Her
son's promotion and bright prospects, perhaps.

I looked across at the old mahogany chest of drawers behind her, to see
if I could recognize any of the framed photographs that stood there.
One, evidently copied from a daguerrotype, was of a curly-haired girl,
about fourteen, probably the daughter who died years ago, and another,
close at her elbow, was of a lanky boy of eight or ten, wearing a broad
straw hat, and grasping a fishing pole, probably Horace, as a child, but
there was nowhere to be seen the photograph of him in cap, gown, and hood
that stood on Miss Lavinia's chimney shelf.

Then as Mrs. Bradford folded her hands over her work, and gazed through
the plants and window, at some far-away thought, I felt l