he could not have expressed his
sentiments in words, the garden brought poignant recollections of the
hopes and promises which had thrown their rose color about the young
days of his marriage. His hopes had never blossomed into fulfilment.
His promises to the little wife had been choked by the weeds of his own
inefficiency. Worse than this, the bursting into bloom of seeds of
selfish recklessness in himself was what had turned the garden of their
life into an arid waste. And now, in their dry and withered old age, he
and Angy were being torn up by the roots, flung as so much rubbish by
the roadside.

"Mother, I be dretful sorry ter take yew away from your posies,"
muttered Abraham as he arose with his green sprig in his hand.

With shaking fingers, Angy sought a pin hidden beneath her basque.
"Father, shall I pin yer 'old-man' in yer buttonhole?" she quavered.
Then as he stooped for her to arrange the posy, she whispered: "I
wouldn't care, 'cept fer what folks must say. Le' 's hurry before any
one sees us. I told everybody that we wa'n't a-gwine ter break up till
ter-morrer mornin'."

Fortunately, there was a way across lots to the Old Ladies' Home, an
unfrequented by-path over a field and through a bit of woodland, which
would bring the couple almost unobserved to a side gate.

Under ordinary circumstances, Angeline would never have taken this path;
for it exposed her carefully patched and newly polished shoes to
scratches, her fragile, worn silk skirt and stiff, white petticoat to
brambles. Moreover, the dragging of the loaded little wagon was more
difficult here for Abraham. But they both preferred the narrower,
rougher way to facing the curious eyes of all Shoreville now, the
pitying windows of the village street.

As the couple came to the edge of the woodland, they turned with one
accord and looked back for the last glimpse of the home. Blazing
gold-red against the kitchen window flamed the afternoon sunlight.

"Look a' that!" Angy cried eagerly, as one who beholds a promise in the
skies. "Jest see, Father; we couldn't 'a' made out that winder this fur
at all ef the sun hadn't struck it jest so. I declar' it seems almost as
ef we could see the rocker, tew. It's tew bad, Abe, that we had ter let
yer old rocker go. D'yew remember--?" She laid her hand on his arm, and
lifted her gaze, growing clouded and wistful, to his face. "When we
bought the chair, we thought mebbe some day I'd be rocking a leetle baby
in