ch with Spot at his feet."

For a minute he did not reply, and when he spoke at last, it was only to
say:

"I wonder if a single human being could ever understand you, Molly?"

"I don't understand myself. I don't even try."

"You've had everything you could want for a year--been everywhere--seen
everything--yet, I believe, you'd give it all up to be back in the
cottage over there with Reuben and his hound?"

"Why shouldn't I?" she answered passionately, "that was what I loved."

"I suppose you're right," he said a little sadly, "that was always what
you loved."

She turned her head away, but he saw the delicate flush pass from her
cheek to her throat.

"I mean I am faithful to the things that really matter," she answered.

"And the things that do not really matter are men?" he asked with a
humour in which there was a touch of grimness.

"Perhaps you're right about some of them, at least," she answered,
smiling at a memory. "I was full of animal spirits--of the joy of
energy, and there was no other outlet. A girl sows her mental wild oats,
if she has any mind, just as a boy does. But what people never seem
to realize is that women go on and change just as men do. They seem to
think that a girl stands perfectly still, that what she is at twenty,
she remains to the end of her life. Of course that's absurd. After the
first shock of real experience that old make-believe side of things
lost all attraction for me. I could no more go back to flirting with Mr.
Mullen or with Jim Halloween than I could sit down in the road and make
mud pies for an amusement. How is Mr. Mullen, by the way?" she inquired
in a less serious tone.

"Just the same. He's had a call."

"And old Adam? Is he still living?"

"He can't walk any longer, but his mind is perfectly clear. Sometimes
his son puts his chair into an oxcart and brings him over to the
ordinary. He's still the best talker about here, and he frets if he is
left by himself."

For a moment they were silent again. Old Adam, having fulfilled his
purpose, was dismissed into space. Molly watched Abel's eyes turn to the
pines on the horizon, and in the midst of the June meadow, there was a
look in them that reminded her of the autumnal sadness of nature. She
had seen this look in Reuben's face when he gazed wistfully at the
blossoming apple boughs in the spring, and the thought came to her
that just this attitude of soul--this steadfast courage in the face of
circumstance--wa