indifference to his opinion of her, and he liked, too,
her listless silence, when she sat, with clasped hands, gazing straight
ahead through the shadowy colonnade of the woods. Not once had her
troubled look wandered from the moist dead leaves on the ground, to the
misty edges of the forest, where small wild flowers thronged in a pale
procession of pipsissewa, ladies' tresses, and Enchanter's nightshade.

"Did you know that the Gays are in Europe?" asked Judy turning her eyes
on his face for the first time.

His heart gave a throb and was quiet.

"No, I hadn't heard it," he replied in an arid voice.

"They say it's more than likely Molly will marry Mr. Jonathan. He's
waitin' on her."

Reaching for the whip, Abel touched the mare lightly on her glossy
flank. After that single pang his suffering had left him--for six weeks
of sleepless nights and tormented days had exhausted his endurance and
reduced him to a condition of emotional lassitude. In his brief
reaction from spiritual revolt into a state of apathetic submission, he
approached his mother's permanent austerity of mind as closely as he was
ever likely to do in the whole of his experience. The mere possibility
of a fresh awakening of feeling filled him with aversion. At the moment
he had as profound a distrust as Sarah of the immaterial elements; and
looking ahead, he saw his future stretching before him as firm and
flat as the turnpike which he was approaching. Delight and despair were
equally distasteful to him. He shrank as instinctively from the thought
of love as a man shrinks from re-opening an old wound which is still
sensitive to the touch, though it has ceased to ache. And so prone
is human nature to affirm its inherent belief in the eternity of the
present, that he was assured, not only that this was the most desirable
point of view he had ever reached, but that it was entirely out of the
question that he should ever travel beyond it to another. Forgetting
the many times when he had revolted from advice merely because it was
"sensible," he began calmly to arrange his life in accordance with that
law of practical expediency against which a month ago he had so hotly
rebelled.

As they drove out of the woods, and turned into the sunken road beyond
the ordinary which led in the direction of Solomon Hatch's farm, he
withdrew his gaze from the head of his mare and looked attentively at
his companion.

"I hope you are having an easier time, Judy," he sa