e Marietta. This was the poetess, Ruth Bellair, and it was of
her he was thinking as he crossed the field, this darkening twilight, to
Marietta's house. There was a warm spring wind, and frogs were peeping.
Jerry knew, although it was too dark to see, that down by the brook the
procession of willows walked in a mist of green. It was a broken sky,
with here and there a star between soft wafts of cloud, and the newness
and beauty of the time smote upon him as he hurried on, and made him
young again. He walked faster than usual, a tall, lightly moving figure,
his head under his soft felt hat thrown forward and his loose hair blown
back by the swiftness of his going. Time seemed to have fallen away from
him at the call of some new anticipation. He was not a man nearing fifty
as the morning's sun had found him, but a youth with the mountain-top
splendidly near and the rising sun to light his steps.

Marietta lived in a little, low-browed, gambrel-roofed house, with a
vegetable garden in the back, a flower garden in front, and an orchard
at the west side. She had sold the adjoining meadows and also the
woodland, because she said it was better to lessen care as you grew
older, and she was a poor hand to keep up a farm. Marietta was of those
who are perhaps not calm by inheritance, but who have attained serenity
because life proves it to be desirable. To-night she saw Jerry coming
and met him at the door, a plump, fresh-colored woman with sweet brows,
thick white hair, and blue eyes full of a wistful sympathy. She was
younger than he, yet her acquired calmness had given her a matronly air
and made her the one to assume protection and a gentle way of giving. As
she stood there in the doorway, lamp in hand, she looked like a
benignant mother waiting to greet a returning child.

"Well, Marietta," said Jerry.

He stopped a moment before her on the doorstone and drew the quick
breath of the haste of his coming. Then he took off his hat, stayed for
one look at the night behind him, and followed her in. Marietta put the
lamp on the high mantel, and moved his chair slightly nearer the hearth.
There was no fire, but the act seemed to make him more intimately
welcome. Then she seated herself on the sofa between the two side
windows and folded her hands for an evening's intercourse. Jerry took
out his pipe, held it absently for a moment, and laid it down on the
table. Marietta hardly liked that. He must be moved indeed, she knew, if
he