tely. He never
dissociated it from the remembrance of Lois's tragedies.

They found Amzi's house in order. Phil lighted the open fire to take the
chill from the living-room, which had been closed since the Perrys'
departure. Amzi ran off in the machine to pay a visit to one of the
county commissioners who lived near by: Lois with her usual adaptability
produced a novel and made herself comfortable on a couch. She was
absorbed in her book before Phil left the room. Her mother's ready
detachment never ceased to astonish her. Sometimes in the midst of a
lively conversation, Lois would abruptly take up a book, or turn away
humming to look out of the nearest window. Her ways had been
disconcerting at first, but Phil had grown used to them. It argued for
the completeness of their understanding that these dismissals were
possible. Her mother's love of ease and luxury; the pretty knick-knacks
she kept about her; her deftness in self-adornment--the little touches
she gave to a hat that utterly re-created it--never failed to fascinate
Phil.

Having disposed of her mother, or rather, that lady having forgotten her
existence, Phil climbed the blossomy orchard slope and looked off toward
Listening Hill. How many things had happened since that fall afternoon
when she had talked there with Fred! Life that had seemed simple just
then had since shown her its complexities. She watched Fred's slow
progress with the corn-planter in the field below.

Glancing again at Listening Hill road her wandering gaze fell upon a
horse and rider. Her eye, delighting in the picturesque at all times,
was alive to the strong, vigorous lines in which man and horse were
drawn against the blue May sky. They gained the crest of the road, and
the man turned in his saddle and swept the surrounding fields in a
prolonged inspection. She looked away and then sought the figures again,
but they had disappeared. A little cloud of dust rose in the hollow
toward Turkey Run. It was undoubtedly big Jack Whittlesey, the sheriff.
The idea of one man hunting another was repugnant to Phil to-day, in
this bright, wakened world of green fields, cheery bird song and
laughing waters. She ran down the hill to escape from the very thought
of sheriffs and prisons, and set off for the creek, following the
Montgomery-Holton fence toward the Holton barn, whither the music had
lured her that night of the change o' the year when she had danced among
the corn shocks. The laborers were