e change, indeed, since the days of Clara's
visit, save that the beehives had been moved farther out. Nor did any
one answer his knock; and mindful of the girl's words, "You'll find him
in the orchard," he made his way out among the trees. The grass was long
and starred with petals. Felix wandered over it among bees busy with the
apple-blossom. At the very end he came on his brother, cutting down a
pear-tree. Tod was in shirt-sleeves, his brown arms bare almost to the
shoulders. How tremendous the fellow was! What resounding and terrific
blows he was dealing! Down came the tree, and Tod drew his arm across
his brow. This great, burnt, curly-headed fellow was more splendid to
look upon than even Felix had remembered, and so well built that not a
movement of his limbs was heavy. His cheek-bones were very broad and
high; his brows thick and rather darker than his bright hair, so that his
deep-set, very blue eyes seemed to look out of a thicket; his level white
teeth gleamed from under his tawny moustache, and his brown, unshaven
cheeks and jaw seemed covered with gold powder. Catching sight of Felix,
he came forward.

"Fancy," he said, "old Gladstone spending his leisure cutting down
trees--of all melancholy jobs!"

Felix did not quite know what to answer, so he put his arm within his
brother's. Tod drew him toward the tree.

"Sit down!" he said. Then, looking sorrowfully at the pear-tree, he
murmured:

"Seventy years--and down in seven minutes. Now we shall burn it. Well,
it had to go. This is the third year it's had no blossom."

His speech was slow, like that of a man accustomed to think aloud. Felix
admired him askance. "I might live next door," he thought, "for all the
notice he's taken of my turning up!"

"I came over in Stanley's car," he said. "Met your two coming
along--fine couple they are!"

"Ah!" said Tod. And there was something in the way he said it that was
more than a mere declaration of pride or of affection. Then he looked at
Felix.

"What have you come for, old man?"

Felix smiled. Quaint way to put it!

"For a talk."

"Ah!" said Tod, and he whistled.

A largish, well-made dog with a sleek black coat, white underneath, and a
black tail white-tipped, came running up, and stood before Tod, with its
head rather to one side and its yellow-brown eyes saying: 'I simply must
get at what you're thinking, you know.'

"Go and tell your mistress to come--Mistress!"

The dog mo