isturbed her son, it
seemed so fondly personal. But this disquietude quickly left him as he
rode away, when he remembered the Major's daughter having lifted just
such a look at himself, for whom, manifestly, she cared nothing, except
in the most colorless way.

* * * * *

Daphne Jane, at Widewood, swinging on the garden-gate and cackling
airily to a parting visitor, slipped to the ground as Widewood's master
suddenly appeared, although just then the first light-hearted smile of
that day broke upon his face. It was the parting visitor, also mounted,
whose presence pleased him in a degree so unexpected even to himself
that he promptly abated his first show of delight.

"Why, Johanna, you important adjunct! To what are we indebted for"--the
tone grew vacant--"this--pleasure?" His gay look darkened to one of
swift reflection and crushing inference. "Do--do you want to see me?" he
blurted, and somewhere under her dark skin Johanna blushed. "No, of
course you don't."

As he dismounted--"Jane," he said, "you no need to come in; finish your
confab." Upstairs he tried to recall the errand that had brought him
there, but Barbara's maid filled all his thought. He saw her from a
window and silently addressed her.

"You're not yourself! You're your mistress and you know it! You're she,
come all the way back from the land of snow to counsel me; and you're
welcome. There's balm, at least, in a sweet woman's counsel, womanly
given. Balm; ah, me! neither she nor I have any right--O! what am I
looking for in this drawer?--No, I'll take just this word from her and
then no more!" Down-stairs he paused an instant in passing his mother's
portrait. "No, dear," he said, "we'll mix nothing else with our one good
dream--Widewood filled with happy homes and this one, with just you and
me in it, the happiest of them all!"

On the gate Daphne Jane still prattled, but after half a dozen false
starts Johanna, for gentle shame's sake, had felt obliged to go. Her
horse paced off briskly, and a less alert nature than Daphne Jane's
would have fancied her soon far on her way. As John came forth again he
saw no sign that his mother's maid, slowly walking toward the house with
her eyes down, was not engaged in some pious self-examination, instead
of listening down the mountain road with both ears. But she easily
guessed he was doing the same thing.

"Well, Jane," he said as he loosed his bridle from the fence, "been
w