rom that shameless thief of another man's exploits.

And yet, when I finally arrived at Hillsboro, I found it not so easy to
begin. Some strange spell, exhaled from the unchanging aspect of the old
house and the old people, fell on me, and, though I tried several times, I
could not find a suitable opening. On Sunday morning grandfather asked me
if I would help him to get out to Jed's grave. The peonies and syringas
were in bloom, and grandmother had the bouquet made up ready. Drawing me
aside, she to me that grandfather was really too infirm to try to make the
expedition at all, and certainly could not go alone. Even then I could
find no words to tell her. I thought it might be easier to do so out of
doors.

It was the middle of a bright spring morning, when we started off,
grandfather leaning on his cane and holding to my arm, while I carried the
great clump of red peonies and white syringas. The sun was warm, but a
cool breeze blew down from the mountains, and grandfather hobbled along
bravely.

It made me feel like a little girl again to have him begin the story of
the moose, and tell it word for word as he always had. He was forced to
stop often now, and wait for breath to come back to him. At each of these
halts beside the road, which was white in the clear spring sunshine, it
was harder and harder to think of breaking in on him with my discovery.

As he finally told about Jedediah's wounded virtue on his deathbed--that
outcry which seemed to me the most brazen part of the whole
imposture--suddenly my heart softened, and I, too, believed that by that
time of his life old Jed was--I really don't know just what it was that I
believed, but it was something as comforting as the quiet warmth of the
sunshine.

We were standing by the sunken old grave when grandfather finished. I
looked at him, the sun shining down on his bent figure and bared white
head, the flowers reflecting their brightness up into his withered old
face, and a lump came into my throat. I could not have told him if I had
wished to.

"We were ashamed to look the dead man in the face," he said humbly, and
laid the flowers down on the young grass.

Then I went around and held his dear old hand tightly in mine; and we
stood very still for a long, long time.

THE ARTIST

"After the sickening stench of personality in theatrical life," the great
Madame Orloff told the doctor with her usual free-handed use of language,
"it is like breathing