artist and hasn't any property at all."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Darby's blank face, but Mrs. Darby
never saw ghosts.

"Of course Jerry and Gene, who have been playmates in the same game all
their lives, will--will--" Mrs. Darby hesitated.

"Will keep on playing the same game," Cornelius suggested. "If that's
all about this business, I'll go and look after the lily-ponds over
yonder, and then take a little exercise before dinner. I'm sorry I
missed Jerry in the city. She doesn't know I am out here."

"What difference if you did? She and Eugene will be coming out on the
train pretty soon," Mrs. Darby declared.

"She doesn't know he's there, maybe. They may miss each other," her
husband replied.

Then he left the arbor and effaced himself, as was his custom, from his
wife's presence, and busied himself with matters concerning the
lily-ponds on the far side of the grounds where pink lotuses were
blooming.

Meantime Jerusha Darby's fingers fairly writhed about her tatting-work,
as she waited impatiently for the sound of the afternoon train from the
city.

"It's time the four-forty was whistling round the curve," she murmured.
"My girl will soon be here, unless the train is delayed by that bridge
down yonder. Plague on these June rains!"

Mrs. Darby said "my girl" exactly as she would have said "my bank
stock," or "my farm." Hers was the tone of complete possession.

"She could have come out in the auto in half the time, the four-forty
creeps so, but the roads are dreadfully skiddy after these abominable
rains," Mrs. Darby continued.

The habit of speaking her thoughts aloud had grown on her, as it often
does on those advanced in years who live much alone. The little vista of
rain-washed meadows and growing grain that lay between tall lilac-trees
was lost to her eyes in the impatience of the moment's delay. What
Jerusha Darby wanted for Jerusha Darby was vastly more important to her
at any moment than the abstract value of a general good or a common
charm.

As she leaned forward, listening intently for the rumble of the train
down in the valley, a great automobile swung through the open gateway of
"Eden" and rounded the curves of the maple-guarded avenue, bearing down
with a birdlike sweep upon the rose-arbor.

"Here I am, Aunt Jerry," the driver's girlish voice called. "Uncle
Cornie is coming out on the train. I beat him to it. I saw the old
engine huffing and puffing at the hill beyond the th