ked!"

"Oh I'll soon be over that," said the Girl. "I am much better than when
I came. I'll be coming over to trade pie with you before long. David
says you are my nearest neighbour, so we must be close friends."

"Well bless your big heart! Now who ever heard of a pretty young thing
like you wantin' to be friends with a plain old country woman?"

"Why I think you are lovely!" cried the Girl. "And all of us are on the
way to age, so we must remember that we will want kindness then more
than at any other time. David says you knew his mother. Sometime won't
you tell me all about her? You must very soon. The Harvester adored her,
and Doctor Carey says she was the noblest woman he ever knew. It's a
big contract to take her place. Maybe if you would tell me all you can
remember I could profit by much of it."

Granny Moreland watched the Girl keenly.

"She wa'ant no ordinary woman, that's sure," she commented. "And she
didn't make no common man out of her son, either. I've always contended
she took the job too serious, and wore herself out at it, but she
certainly done the work up prime. If she's above cloud leanin' over the
ramparts lookin' down----though it gets me as to what foundation they
use or where they get the stuff to build the ramparts----but if they
is ramparts, and she's peekin' over them, she must take a lot of solid
satisfaction in seeing that David is not only the man she fought and
died to make him, but he's give her quite a margin to spread herself
on. She 'lowed to make him a big man, but you got to know him close
and plenty 'fore it strikes you jest what his size is. I've watched him
pretty sharp, and tried to help what I could since Marthy went, and I'm
frank to say I druther see David happy than to be happy myself. I've had
my fling. The rest of the way I'm willin' to take what comes, with the
best grace I can muster, and wear a smilin' face to betoken the joy I
have had; but it cuts me sore to see the young sufferin'."

"Do you think David is unhappy?" asked the Girl eagerly.

"I don't see how he could be!" cried the old lady. "Of course he
ain't! 'Pears as if he's got everythin' to make him the proudest, best
satisfied of men. I'll own I was mighty anxious to see you. I know
the kind o' woman it would take to make David miserable, and it seems
sometimes as if men----that is good men----are plumb, stone blind when
it comes to pickin' a woman. They jest hitch up with everlastin' misery
easy as dew