st. Lydia looked and could not speak. Eben knew
too much even to glance at her. He felt all the wonder of it, and the
pride, for it seemed to him that it was, in a way, his sky, because it
was so much nearer home. They stayed there in silence while the beauty
changed but never faded, and the horse dropped his head, to rest.

"Well," said Eben at last, dryly, "I dunno 's ever I see such a sky as
that, unless 'twas some I used to see with my first wife."

For the first time he seemed cruel. A bitter thought shot up in Lydia's
heart that at every feast there was to be the unbidden guest. She closed
her eyes, and when she opened them again, the sky had faded and the air
was chill.

"I guess you're gittin' tired again," said Eben tenderly. "Well, we'll
be to aunt Phebe's by eight, an' she'll put you straight to bed."

The tears had wet her cheeks. They were the first she had shown him, and
he looked at them with dismay. "Hullo!" he cried, "hullo!" It was actual
terror in his voice. "'Tain't so bad as that!"

Lydia straightened herself in the buggy and wiped away the tears with an
impatient hand.

"I guess 'twas the sunset," she said tremulously. "I never see such a
sky."

"That all?" Eben was much relieved. Then he touched up the horse, and
told him what a lot of oats were waiting in aunt Phebe's barn. "If
that's all," he said, giving his mind to Lydia again, "you'll have to
spend most o' your time in salt water. That's the kind o' sunsets we're
goin' to have every night arter we get home. The doctor's ordered 'em."

Lydia made herself laugh, and they talked no more until they drove up to
a prosperous white house on the outskirts of the first village, and aunt
Phebe came to meet them. It was all a joyous tumult that night, and
Lydia went to bed early, with a confused sense that aunt Phebe was very
kind and that she had gold-bowed glasses and shook the floor when she
walked, and that the supper was a product of expert cooking. Eben was
uproariously gay, in the degree of approaching home, and took aunt Phebe
about the waist to waltz with her, whereupon she cuffed him with a
futile hand, remarking:--

"Eben Jakes, I'd be ashamed!"

Lydia had a sense of being in a homely paradise where everything was
pleasantly at one, yet that she, companioned by the unclassified memory
of a woman whose place she held, had no part in the general harmony.
Next morning she overslept, and found herself alone. She heard Eben's
whistle f