in the spring,
people said his love for Maud had been superficial. In truth, he had
loved the girl as sincerely as he had hated his rival. That he could
rise out of the barbaric in his love and hate was heroic.

When Albert went to ride again, it was on melting snow, with the
slowest horse Troutt had. Maud was happier than she had been since she
left school, and fuller of color and singing. She dared not let a golden
moment pass now without hearing it ring full, and she did not dare to
think how short this day of happiness might be.

IV.

At the end of the fifth week there was a suspicion of spring in the wind
as it swept the southern exposure of the valley. February was drawing to
a close, and there was more than a suggestion of spring in the rapidly
melting snow which still lay on the hills and under the cedars and
tamaracks in the swamps. Patches of green grass, appearing on the sunny
side of the road where the snow had melted, led to predictions of spring
from the loafers beginning to sun themselves on the salt-barrels and
shoe-boxes outside the stores.

A group sitting about the blacksmith shop were talking it.

"It's an early seedin'--now mark my words," said Troutt, as he threw his
knife into the soft ground at his feet. "The sun is crossing the line
earlier this spring than it did last."

"Yes; an' I heard a crow to-day makin' that kind of a--a spring noise
that kind o'--I d' know what--kind o' goes all through a feller."

"And there's Uncle Sweeney, an' that settles it; spring's comin' sure!"
said Troutt, pointing at an old man much bent, hobbling down the street
like a symbolic figure of the old year.

"When _he_ gits out the frogs ain't fur behind."

"We'll be gittin' on to the ground by next Monday," said Sam Dingley to
a crowd who were seated on the newly painted harrows and seeders which
"Svend & Johnson" had got out ready for the spring trade. "Svend &
Johnson's Agricultural Implement Depot" was on the north side of the
street, and on a spring day the yard was one of the pleasantest loafing
places that could be imagined, especially if one wished company.

Albert wished to be alone. Something in the touch and tone of this
spring afternoon made him restless and full of strange thoughts. He took
his way out along the road which followed the river bank, and in the
outskirts of the village threw himself down on a bank of grass which the
snows had protected, and which had already a tinge of green