She took Jessamine's hand in a friendly fashion.

"Come in, dear. You're welcome as a June rose."

When Mr. Bell returned, he found Jessamine standing on the porch with
her hands full of honeysuckle and her cheeks pink with excitement.

"I declare, you've got roses already," he exclaimed. "If they'd only
stay now, and not bleach out again. What's first now?"

"Oh, I don't know. There are so many things I want to do. Those
flowers in the garden are calling me--and I want to go down to that
hollow and pick buttercups--and I want to stay right here and look at
things."

Mr. Bell laughed. "Come with me to the pasture and see my Jersey
calves. They're something worth seeing. Come, Aunt. This way, Miss
Stacy."

He led the way down the lane, the two women following together.
Jessamine thought she must be in a pleasant dream. The whole afternoon
was a feast of delight to her starved heart. When sunset came she sat
down, tired out, but radiant, on the porch steps. Her hat had slipped
back and her hair was curling around her face. Her dark eyes were
aglow; the roses still bloomed in her cheeks.

Mr. Bell looked at her admiringly. "If a man could see that pretty
sight every night!" he thought. "And, Great Scott, why can't he?
What's to prevent, I'd like to know?"

When the moon rose, Mr. Bell brought his team around and they drove
back through the clear night, past the wonderful stillness of the
great beech woods and the wide fields. The farmer looked sideways at
his companion.

"The little thing wants to be petted and looked after," he thought.
"She's just pining away for home and love. And why can't she have it?
She's dying by inches in that hole back in town."

Jessamine, quite unsuspecting the farmer's meditations, was living
over again in fancy the joys of the afternoon: the ramble in the
pasture, the drink of water from the spring under the hillside pines,
the bountiful, old-fashioned country supper in the vine-shaded
dining-room, the cup of new milk in the dairy at sunset, and all the
glory of skies and meadows and trees. How could she go back to her
cage again?

The next week Mr. Bell, senior, resumed his visits, and the young
farmer came no more to the side door of No. 49. Jessamine missed him
greatly. Mr. Bell, senior, never brought her clover or honeysuckle.

But one day his nephew suddenly reappeared. Jessamine opened the door
for him, and her face lighted up, but Mr. Bell saw that she had been
cryin