the young man was attached to his beautiful
solitary abode--he had planted and watered a vine for the door. She
resolved to tell him that he could help himself to the fruit and flowers
in Highcourt. If he cared to set out a small flower garden, he could get
seeds and slips from her own formal garden. But there was the question
of water: it would not be possible for him to start a garden on this
hilltop without water. She supposed that he must lug what water he used
from Highcourt. Probably that was the use he put those large tin cans
to....

Adelle's mind was naturally slow in its operations. Ideas and
impressions seemed to lie in it for months like seed in a dry and cold
ground without any sign of fruitful germination. But they were not
always dead! Sometimes, after days or weeks or even months of apparent
extinction, they came to life and bore fruit,--usually a meager fruit.
To-day, for an inexplicable reason, she began to think again of the
mason's family name. He was a Clark without the e, and his people came
from "back East." It might seem strange that this fact had not at once
roused a train of ideas in Adelle's mind when she first learned of it.
But the lost heir to Clark's Field had never been to her of that vital
importance he had been to her mother and uncle. It must be remembered
that her aunt was the only one of her family who had been at all near to
her, and her aunt had small faith in the Clark tradition and was not of
a reminiscent turn of mind. Of course, the trust officers had explained
carefully to Adelle's aunt in her hearing all about the difficulties
with the title, and at various times after her aunt's death had alluded
to this matter in their brief communications with her. But they had not
gone into the specific measures they had taken to look for the lost
heirs of old Edward Clark, nor the means by which the title at last had
been "quieted," to use the expressive legal term. And finally all such
business details passed through Adelle's mind like a stream of water
through a pipe, leaving little sediment. She had not thought about the
Clarks or Clark's Field for some years....

To-day she began wondering whether by chance this young mason of the
name of Clark could be related to any of her mother's people. She must
find out more about his family history. So she prolonged her walk among
the hills until the declining sun told her that the mason would have
returned to his home. Then she came back alo