upon all the tender imaginings of a
man's first dream of love, conjuring before his vision one empty fantasy
after another.

It was evening, and under the silver light of a thin crescent hanging low
in the heaven he paced beneath the trees, Lucy upon his arm. Or lovely
with the freshness of early morning, she stood with him in the field, the
brightness of her eyes as sparkling as the flash of the dew-drops on the
grass. Again she came before him, gliding quietly amid a maze of humble
domestic tasks, transforming each with the grace of her presence. Or
perhaps she sat quietly watching the embers of a winter's fire that
touched her hair to a glory of glinting copper.

But wherever she moved, the land upon which she trod was _his_ land; the
home where she toiled _his_ home; the hearth that warmed her _his_
hearth.

There were long hours when he was alone in the twilight with only his pipe
for company, when through the smoke he seemed to see her close beside him.
Sometimes she smiled down into his eyes; sometimes she raised her sweet
lips to his; and once she came to him with madonna-like holiness, a
sleeping child in her arms,--her child--and his.

Then Martin would rouse himself to find his pipe smoldering, the lamp dim,
and the chill of the night upon him. With an impatient shrug he would
spring to his feet and tramp upstairs, hoping to find in slumber an escape
from these fair but tormenting reveries. Sleep, however, came but
fitfully, and even from the sacred confines of its privacy it was
impossible to banish subconscious mirages of the day. There was no place
to which he could flee where thoughts of Lucy Webster did not pursue him.

He saw her often now, very often, tripping buoyantly from house to barn,
from barn to garden and back again, her round young arms bearing baskets
of vegetables, or laden with shining milk pails.

How proud her head! How light her step!

One morning she skirted the wall so close that his whisper might have
reached her had he chosen to speak. He could see the fringe of dark lashes
against her skin, the rise and fall of her round bosom, the lilacs that
filled her hands. But he did not speak and neither did she. In fact, she
seemed not to see him, so busy was she toying with her flowers. She must
be fond of flowers, for she was seldom without one tucked in her gown.

These glimpses, however, were fleeting, and after he had yielded to the
temptation of indulging in them he was wont to