the question forever. The
acknowledged daughter of Mr. Jonathan Gay was determined that she
should continue to be known merely as the granddaughter of his overseer.
Kesiah's overtures, had been--well, not exactly repulsed, but certainly
ignored; her advice had melted to thin air as soon as it was spoken.
As Molly flitted from her over the young weeds in the meadow, the older
woman stood looking after her with a heaviness, like the weight of
unshed tears, in her eyes. Not the girl's future, but her own, appeared
to her barren of interest, robbed even of hope. The spirit that combats,
she saw, had never been hers--nor had the courage that prevails. For
this reason fate had been hard to her--because she had never yielded to
pressure--because she had stepped by habit rather than choice into the
vacant place. She was a good woman--her heart assured her of this--she
had done her duty no matter what it cost her--and she had possessed,
moreover, a fund of common sense which had aided her not a little in
doing it. It was this common sense that told her now that facts were,
after all, more important than dreams--that the putting up of
pickles was a more useful work in the world than the regretting of
possibilities--that the sordid realities were not less closely woven
into the structure of existence than were the romantic illusions. She
told herself these things, yet in spite of her words she saw her future
stretching away, like her past, amid a multitude of small duties for
which she had neither inclination nor talent. One thing after another,
all just alike, day after day, month after month, year after year.
Nothing ahead of her, and, looking back, nothing behind her that she
would care to stop and remember. "That's life," she said softly to
herself and went on her way, while Molly, glancing back, beheld her only
as a blot on the sunshine.

"Poor Miss Kesiah," the girl thought before she forgot her. "I wonder if
she's ever really lived?"

Then the wonder fled from her mind, for, as a shadow fell over her path,
she looked up, startled, into the eyes of Gay, who had burst suddenly
out of the willows. His face was flushed and he appeared a trifle
annoyed. As he stopped before her, he cut sharply at the weeds with a
small whip he carried.

"Don't, please," she said; "I hate to see people cut off the heads of
innocent things."

"It is rather beastly," her returned, his face clearing. "Did you come
out to find me, cousin?"

"