ie liked the sunshine, and to-day it was opulent
and flooding. To Osmond, looking at her as he came, her serenity seemed
even majestic. She had forgotten the world, he saw, and a smile brooded
upon her face, that face where no evil passions had ever dwelt, and
where peace had lain like a visible sign for many years. As he passed
her portrait, he glanced at it in proud wonder because Peter had done
it. To Osmond it looked complete as it was, and he found it another and
only less beautiful grannie in the garden, with an added touch of life
upon the face, something that did not lie there every day. It was a
shade of sadness in the midst of the tranquillity, as if grannie also,
in spite of her calm, had known great hungers. It tempered her childlike
quality and made what might be called her character as enduring as time
that had wrought it. She opened her eyes, when he neared her, and her
smile came, the one that was for him alone and never failed him.

"What were you thinking about, grannie?" he asked her.

"A good many things," she said. "Florrie and poor Billy Stark."

"You'll miss her, grannie!"

"Not long, son. And I'm very glad she's gone. Florrie never was one to
bear old age. She'd have had to meet it soon!"

Osmond smiled tenderly at the ingenuous implication, but then he
bethought him it was true. Madam Fulton never had been old. Grannie put
out her hand to his.

"I've been thinking of you, son, all the morning. I hoped you'd come."

"Yes, grannie. I couldn't come before."

"No. You look like a new man."

"I am a new man, grannie."

He gave the kind hand a little tight grasp, and left her. Peter was
coming with the glass of water, and Peter, too, had a morning light on
his face, only his was the look of the maker who sees the vision of
fulfillment.

"Good picture, Pete," said Osmond.

Peter nodded in entire acquiescence.

"I don't know what grannie looks like," he said. He was gazing into the
glass of water, as if it were a crystal and he could find the answer
there. "I've been trying to think. Like a baby--with a sort of
innocence--like a fate, a kind one,--like the earth goddess. If I've put
in all I see, it's a corker."

"It's the mother look," said Osmond. "But it is a corker, safe enough."

They parted with a nod, but Peter stopped.

"Hear that!" he said.

Rose was singing. The song began so triumphantly, with such dash and
splendor, that it was almost like improvising. Osmond felt it lik