ith a tremulous
effort at self-control. A man in the machine lifted his hat with some
eagerness. The woman inclined her head as a queen might acknowledge the
plaudits of the multitude.

After they passed, comments were audible.

"What a stunner! Who is she, Jack?" The voice was masculine.

"Riding cross-saddle! Jack, do you know her?" The voice was feminine.

The answer was lower, but the woman on horseback heard it. "Of course I
know her, or used to. It is the woman I was telling you about, the
famous Mrs. Kildare of Storm."

Mrs. Kildare's color did not change as she rode on. Perhaps her lips
tightened a little; otherwise the serenity of her face was unaltered.
Serenity, like patience, is a thing that must be won, a habit of mind
not easily to be broken. She reminded herself that since the invasion of
automobiles she must expect often to encounter people who had known her
before.

Her eyes, keen and gray and slightly narrowed, like all eyes that are
accustomed to gaze across wide spaces, turned from side to side with
quick, observant glances. Negroes, "worming" tobacco in a field, bent to
their work as she passed with a sudden access of zeal.

"That's right, boys," she called, smiling. "The Madam sees you!"

The negroes guffawed sheepishly in answer.

A certain warmth was in her gaze as she looked about, her, something
deeper than mere pride of possession. Her feeling for the land she owned
was curiously maternal. "My dear fields," she sometimes said to herself.
"My cattle, my trees"; and even, "my birds, my pretty, fleecy clouds up
there."

When she came to a certain cornfield, acres of thrifty stalks standing
their seven feet and more, green to the roots, plumes nodding proudly in
the breeze, she faced her mare about and saluted, as an officer might
salute his regiment.

A chuckle sounded from the other side of the road. On a bank almost
level with her head a young man lay under a beech-tree, watching her
with kindling eyes, as he had watched her ever since she rode into
sight. "Miss Kate, Miss Kate, when are you going to grow up and give
those girls of yours a chance?"

Her surprised blush took all the maturity out of her face. She might
have been twenty. "Spying on me as usual, Philip! Well, why shouldn't I
salute this corn of mine? It certainly serves me nobly."

He came down from the bank and stood beside her; a stalwart young man in
shabby riding-boots and a clerical collar, with eyes surprising