, where it hovered;
a dove wailed from the old orchard, where a pair of them nested year
after year; a little child-wind came with soft fingers, and laid them on
the waiting woman's hair.

Her face quickened with a smile. Joe was coming home from the field.
Over his shoulder he carried his hoe, and as he came on toward her in
yard-long strides his mother thought of the young soldiers she had seen
march away to the war, carrying their guns in that same free confidence
of careless strength. His hat was pushed back from his forehead, the
collar of his blue flannel shirt was open. His boyish suspenders had
been put away in favor of a belt, which was tight-drawn about his slim
waist.

Very trim and strong, and confident he looked, with the glow of youth in
his cheeks, and the spark of happiness in his gray eyes. He was well set
in the form of a man now, the months since his imprisonment having
brought him much to fasten upon and hold.

Joe made the same great splashing that he had made on that spring
evening of a year gone by, when he came home from work to step into the
shadow which so quickly grew into a storm. But there was no shadow ahead
of him this night; there was no somber thing to bend down the high
serenity of his happy heart.

He stood before the glass hung above the wash bench and smoothed his
hair. Mrs. Newbolt was standing by the stove, one of the lids partly
removed, some white thing in her hand which she seemed hesitating over
consigning to the flames.

"What've you got there, Mother?" he asked cheerily as he turned to take
his place at the waiting table.

"Laws," said she, in some perturbation, her face flushed, holding the
thing in her hand up to his better view, "it's that old paper I got from
Isom when I--a year ago! I mislaid it when the men was paintin' and
plasterin', and I just now run across it stuck back of the coffee jar."

For a moment Joe stood behind her, silently, looking over her shoulder
at the signature of Isom Chase.

"It's no use now," said she, her humiliation over being confronted with
this reminder of her past perfidy against her beloved boy almost
overwhelming her. "We might as well put it in the stove and git it out
of sight."

Joe looked at her with a smile, his face still solemn and serious for
all its youth and the fires of new-lit hope behind his eyes. He laid his
hand upon her shoulder assuringly, and closed the stove.

"Give it to me, Mother," said he, reaching out