n errand and Ivory showed me
a humming-bird's nest in that lilac bush by the door."

Mrs. Boynton smiled "Come and look!" she whispered. "There is always a
humming-bird's nest in our lilac. How did you remember?"

The two women approached the bush and Mrs. Boynton carefully parted the
leaves to show the dainty morsel of a home thatched with soft gray-green
and lined with down. "The birds have flown now," she said. "They were
like little jewels when they darted off in the sunshine."

Her voice was faint and sweet, as if it came from far away, and her eyes
looked, not as if they were seeing you, but seeing something through
you. Her pale hair was turned back from her paler face, where the
veins showed like blue rivers, and her smile was like the flitting of a
moonbeam. She was standing very close to Waitstill, closer than she
had been to any woman for many years, and she studied her a little,
wistfully, yet courteously, as if her attention was attracted by
something fresh and winning. She looked at the color, ebbing and flowing
in the girl's cheeks; at her brows and lashes; at her neck, as white
as swan's-down; and finally put out her hand with a sudden impulse and
touched the knot of wavy bronze hair under the brimmed hat.

"I had a daughter once," she said. "My second baby was a girl, but she
lived only a few weeks. I need her very much, for I am a great care to
Ivory. He is son and daughter both, now that Mr. Boynton is away from
home.--You did not see any one in the road as you turned in from the
bars, I suppose?"

"No," answered Waitstill, surprised and confused, "but I didn't really
notice; I was thinking of a cool place for my horse to stand."

"I sit out here in these warm afternoons," Mrs. Boynton continued,
shading her eyes and looking across the fields, "because I can see so
far down the lane. I have the supper-table set for my husband already,
and there is a surprise for him, a saucer of wild strawberries I picked
for him this morning. If he does not come, I always take away the plate
and cup before Ivory gets here; it seems to make him unhappy."

"He doesn't like it when you are disappointed, I suppose," Waitstill
ventured. "I have brought my knitting, Mrs. Boynton, so that I needn't
keep you idle if you wish to work. May I sit down a few minutes? And
here is a cottage cheese for Ivory and Rodman, and a jar of plums for
you, preserved from my own garden."

Mrs. Boynton's eyes searched the face of this