d
of many things. She had kept her freshness of soul and her ideals
untarnished. In the peace of the old valley she had lived a life,
narrow outwardly, wondrously deep and wide in thought and aspiration.
Her native hills bounded the vision of her eyes, but the outlook of
the soul was far and unhindered. In the quiet places and the green
ways she had found what he had failed to find--the secret of happiness
and content. He knew that if this woman had walked hand in hand with
him through the years, life, even in the glare and tumult of that
world beyond the hills, would never have lost its meaning for him. Oh,
fool and blind that he had been! While he had sought and toiled afar,
the best that God had meant for him had been here in the home of
youth. When darkness came down through the firs he told her all this,
haltingly, blunderingly, yearningly.

"Joyce, is it too late? Can you forgive my mistake, my long blindness?
Can you care for me again--a little?"

She turned her face upward to the sky between the swaying fir tops and
he saw the reflection of a star in her eyes. "I have never ceased to
care," she said in a low tone. "I never really wanted to cease. It
would have left life too empty. If my love means so much to you it is
yours, Cuthbert--it always has been yours."

He drew her close into his arms, and as he felt her heart beating
against his he understood that he had found the way back to simple
happiness and true wisdom, the wisdom of loving and the happiness of
being loved.

Jane Lavinia

Jane Lavinia put her precious portfolio down on the table in her room,
carefully, as if its contents were fine gold, and proceeded to unpin
and take off her second-best hat. When she had gone over to the
Whittaker place that afternoon, she had wanted to wear her best hat,
but Aunt Rebecca had vetoed that uncompromisingly.

"Next thing you'll be wanting to wear your best muslin to go for the
cows," said Aunt Rebecca sarcastically. "You go right back upstairs
and take off that chiffon hat. If I was fool enough to be coaxed into
buying it for you, I ain't going to have you spoil it by traipsing
hither and yon with it in the dust and sun. Your last summer's sailor
is plenty good enough to go to the Whittakers' in, Jane Lavinia."

"But Mr. Stephens and his wife are from New York," pleaded Jane
Lavinia, "and she's so stylish."

"Well, it's likely they're used to seeing chiffon hats," Aunt Rebecca
responded, more sar