u got the prize fer
your marble cake."

Mrs. Tanner blushed and looked down apologetically at her guests. "Well,
then, ef you'll just come in and set down, I'll dish up. My land! Ain't
that Bud comin' down the road, Pa? He's likely sent word by Bud. I'll
hurry in an' dish up."

Bud slid into his seat hurriedly after a brief ablution in the kitchen,
and his mother questioned him sharply.

"Bud, wher you be'n? Did the minister get invited out?"

The boy grinned and slowly winked one eye at Gardley. "Yes, he's invited
out, all right," he said, meaningly. "You don't need to wait fer him. He
won't be home fer some time, I don't reckon."

Gardley looked keenly, steadily, at the boy's dancing eyes, and resolved
to have a fuller understanding later, and his own eyes met the boy's in
a gleam of mischief and sympathy.

It was the first time in twenty years that Mom Wallis had eaten anything
which she had not prepared herself, and now, with fried chicken and
company preserves before her, she could scarcely swallow a mouthful. To
be seated beside Gardley and waited on like a queen! To be smiled at by
the beautiful young girl across the table, and deferred to by Mr. and
Mrs. Tanner as "Mrs. Wallis," and asked to have more pickles and another
helping of jelly, and did she take cream and sugar in her coffee! It was
too much, and Mom Wallis was struggling with the tears. Even Bud's
round, blue eyes regarded her with approval and interest. She couldn't
help thinking, if her own baby boy had lived, would he ever have been
like Bud? And once she smiled at him, and Bud smiled back, a real
boy-like, frank, hearty grin. It was all like taking dinner in the
Kingdom of Heaven to Mom Wallis, and getting glory aforetime.

It was a wonderful afternoon, and seemed to go on swift wings. Gardley
went back to the school-house, where the horses had been left, and Bud
went with him to give further particulars about that wink at the
dinner-table. Mom Wallis went up to the rose-garlanded room and learned
how to wash her hair, and received a roll of flowered scrim wherewith to
make curtains for the bunk-house. Margaret had originally intended it
for the school-house windows in case it proved necessary to make that
place habitable, but the school-room could wait.

And there in the rose-room, with the new curtains in her trembling
hands, and the great old mountain in full view, Mom Wallis knelt beside
the little gay rocking-chair, while Margaret kn