go right home."

"I'll divide the flowers, David."

"Oh, keep them all."

"No, indeed. Mother Bab would be disappointed if you brought her none."

She opened the box, separated half of the arbutus from their mates and
laid them in the uplifted corner of her coat. "There," she said, "the
rest are yours and Mother Bab's. It was perfect in the woods to-day.
Thank you----"

But he interrupted her. "It is I who must say that, Phoebe! This has
been a great day. I'll never forget the glorious hour when we were on
our knees and pushed away the leaves and found the arbutus. That is
something to take with one, to remember when the days are not perfect as
this one."

He laid his fingers a moment on her hand as she held the corner of her
coat to keep the flowers from falling, then he turned and jumped into
the carriage.

"Give my love to Mother Bab," she said.

He turned, smiled and nodded, then started off. Phoebe stood at the gate
and watched the carriage as it went slowly up the steep road by the
hill. Her thoughts were with the man who was going home to his mother,
going with trailing arbutus in his hands and some great unhappiness in
his heart.

"Is it always so?" she thought. "We carry fragrance in our hands, but
what in our hearts?" For the time she was once more the old sympathetic,
natural Phoebe, eager to help her friend in need, feeling the divine
longing to comfort one who was miserable. "Oh, Davie, Davie," she
thought as she went into the house, "I wish I could help you."

CHAPTER XXVIII

MOTHER BAB AND HER SON

WHEN David drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to
the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her
garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in
which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to
shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a
possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took
the horse and carriage to the barn.

When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling--he
would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would
soon discover that all was not well with him.

"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.

"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet
blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phoebe have a good time?
Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in