ckly, stunted pines and burned
patches, stretching westward from the Merrimac, Silas saw beauty and
colour, life in the once prosperous houses not yet abandoned....
Presently, the hills, all hyacinth blue, rise up against the sunset, and
the horses' feet are on the "Boston Road"--or rud, according to the
authorized pronunciation of that land. Hardly, indeed, in many places, a
"rud" to-day, reverting picturesquely into the forest trail over which
the early inland settlers rode their horses or drove their oxen with
upcountry produce to the sea. They were not a people who sought the
easiest way, and the Boston Road reflects their characters: few valleys
are deep enough to turn it aside; few mountains can appal it: railroads
have given it a wide berth. Here and there the forest opens out to
reveal, on a knoll or "flat," a forgotten village or tavern-stand. Over
the high shelf of Washington Town it runs where the air is keen and the
lakes are blue, where long-stemmed wild flowers nod on its sunny banks,
to reach at length the rounded, classic hills and sentinel mountain that
mark the sheep country of the Connecticut....

It was before Janet's convalescence began that Mrs. Maturin had consulted
Insall concerning her proposed experiment in literature. Afterwards he
had left Silliston for a lumber camp on a remote river in northern Maine,
abruptly to reappear, on a mild afternoon late in April, in Augusta
Maturin's garden. The crocuses and tulips were in bloom, and his friend,
in a gardening apron, was on her knees, trowel in hand, assisting a hired
man to set out marigolds and snapdragons.

"Well, it's time you were home again," she exclaimed, as she rose to
greet him and led him to a chair on the little flagged terrace beside the
windows of her library. "I've got so much to tell you about our invalid."

"Our invalid!" Insall retorted.

"Of course. I look to you to divide the responsibility with me, and
you've shirked by running off to Maine. You found her, you know--and
she's really remarkable."

"Now see here, Augusta, you can't expect me to share the guardianship of
an attractive and--well, a dynamic young woman. If she affects you this
way, what will she do to me? I'm much too susceptible."

"Susceptible" she scoffed. "But you can't get out of it. I need you. I've
never been so interested and so perplexed in my life."

"How is she?" Insall asked.

"Frankly, I'm worried," said Mrs. Maturin. "At first she seemed to b