ars. He had
an arm-chair which he tilted back against the house wall, and he was
exceedingly comfortable. The air was neither warm nor cold. There was
a clear red in the west and only one rose-tinged cloud the shape of a
bird's wing. He could hear the sunset calls of birds and the laughter
of children. Once a cow lowed. A moist sense of growing things, the
breath of spring, came into his nostrils. Henry realized that he was
very happy. He realized for the first time, with peaceful content,
not with joy so turbulent that it was painful and rebellious, that he
and his wife owned this grand old house and all those fair acres. He
was filled with that great peace of possession which causes a man to
feel that he is safe from the ills of life. Henry felt fenced in and
guarded. Then suddenly the sense of possession upon earth filled his
whole soul with the hope of possession after death. Henry felt, for
the first time in his life, as if he had a firm standing-ground for
faith. For the first time he looked at the sunset sky, he listened to
the birds and children, he smelled the perfume of the earth, and
there was no bitterness in his soul. He smiled a smile of utter peace
which harmonized with it all, and the conviction of endless happiness
and a hereafter seemed to expand all his consciousness.

Chapter IV

The dining-room in the White homestead was a large, low room whose
southward windows were shaded at this season with a cloud of
gold-green young grape leaves. The paper was a nondescript pattern, a
large satin scroll on white. The room was wainscoted in white, and
the panel-work around the great chimney was beautiful. A Franklin
stove with a pattern of grape-vines was built into the chimney under
the high mantel. Sylvia regarded this dubiously.

"I don't think much of that old-fashioned Franklin stove," she told
Henry. "Why Abrahama had it left in, after she had her nice furnace,
beats me. Seems to me we had better have it taken out, and have a
nice board, covered with paper to match this on the room, put there
instead. There's a big roll of the paper up garret, and it ain't
faded a mite."

"Mr. Allen will like it just the way it is," said Henry, regarding
the old stove with a sneaking admiration of which he was ashamed. It
had always seemed to him that Sylvia's taste must be better than his.
He had always thought vaguely of women as creatures of taste.

"I think maybe he'll like a fire in it sometimes," he said,