and down Providence
Road that wound its calm, even way from across the ridge down through
the green valley. Rose Mary's milk-house was nestled between the
breasts of a low hill, upon which was perched the wide-winged, old
country house which had brooded the fortunes of the Alloways since the
wilderness days. The spring which gushed from the back wall of the
milk-house poured itself into a stone trough on the side of the Road,
which had been placed there generations agone for the refreshment of
beast, while man had been entertained within the hospitable stone
walls. And at the foot of the Briars, as the Alloway home, hill,
spring and meadows had been called from time immemorial, clustered the
little village of Sweetbriar.

The store, which also sheltered the post-office, was almost opposite
the spring-house door across the wide Road, the blacksmith shop
farther down and the farm-houses stretched fraternally along either
side in both directions. Far up the Road, as it wound its way around
Providence Nob, could be seen the chimneys and the roofs of
Providence, while Springfield and Boliver also lay like smoke-wreathed
visions in the distance. Something of the peace and plenty of it all
had begun to smooth the irritated wrinkle from between Mark Everett's
brows, when Rose Mary's hand rested for a second over his on the table
and her rich voice, with its softest brooding note, came from across
her bowl.

"Ah, I know it's hard for you, Mr. Mark," she said, "and I wish--I
wish--The lilacs will be in bloom next week, won't that help some?"
And the wooing tone in her voice was exactly what she used in coaxing
young Stonewall Jackson to bed or Uncle Tucker to tie up his throat in
a flannel muffler.

"It's not lilacs I'm needing with a rose in bloom right--" But
Everett's gallant response to the coaxing was cut short by a sally
from an unexpected quarter.

Down Providence Road at full tilt came Stonewall Jackson, with the
Swarm in a cloud of dust at his heels. He jumped across the spring
branch and darted in under the milk-house eaves, while the Swarm drew
up on the other bank in evident impatience. Swung bundle-wise under
his arm he held a small, tow-headed bunch, and as he landed on the
stone door-sill he hastily deposited it on the floor at Rose Mary's
feet.

"Say, Rose Mamie," he panted, "you just keep Shoofly for us a little
while, won't you? Mis' Poteet have done left her with Tobe to take
care of and he put her on