ived in a new world. So, almost before they could believe it, September
came, filling the distance with tranquil haze, and mellowing the flats
to dim orange, threaded with the keen blue inlets of the bay. Asters
began to open lavender stars at the door-stone of Applegate Farm; tall
rich milkweed pressed dusty flower-bunches against the fence, and the
sumach brandished smoldering pyramids of fire along the roadsides.

Ken came home late, whistling, up from Asquam. Trade for the Sturgis
Water Line was heavy again just now; the hotels and cottages were being
vacated every day, and more baggage than the _Dutchman_ could carry lay
piled in the Sturgis "warehouse" till next morning. Ken's whistle
stopped as he swung into Winterbottom Road and began to climb the hill.
Just at the crest of the rise, where the pale strip of road met the
twilight of the sky, the full moon hung, a golden disc scarcely more
luminous than the sky around it. As he moved up the hill, it moved also,
till it floated clear of the dark juniper-trees and stood high above
them. Crickets were taking up their minor creaking, and there was no
other sound.

Through the half dusk, the white chimneys of Applegate Farm showed
vaguely, with smoke rising so lazily that it seemed almost a stationary
streak of blue across the trees. What a decent old place it was, thought
Ken. Was it only because it constituted home? No; they had worked to
make it so, and it had ripened and expanded under their hands.

"I shouldn't mind Mother's seeing it, now," Ken reflected.

He sighed as he remembered the last difficult letter which he and Phil
had composed--a strictly truthful letter, which said much and told
nothing. He wondered how much longer the fiction would have to be
sustained; when the doctor at Hilltop would sanction a revelation of all
that had been going on since that desolate March day, now so long ago.

As Ken neared the house, he heard the reedy voice of the organ, and,
stopping beside the lighted window, looked in. Felicia was mending
beside the lamp; Kirk sat at the melodeon, rapturously making music.
From the somewhat vague sweetness of the melody, Ken recognized it as
one of Kirk's own compositions--without beginning, middle, or end, but
with a gentle, eerie harmony all its own. The Maestro, who was
thoroughly modern in his instruction, if old-school himself, was
teaching composition hand in hand with the other branches of music, and
he allowed himself, at ti