irectly after dinner. The doctor had
been called away; but the others had strolled across the lawn and up the
hill as far as a great bed of green and gray moss, where they had
thrown themselves down under one of the great chestnut-trees. At their
right, an aged birch drooped nearly to the earth; behind them, a pile of
lichen-covered rocks cropped out from the moss, against which the twins
were resting in an indiscriminate pile. To Mrs. McAlister's mind, there
was something indescribably pleasant in this simple holiday-making, and
she gave herself up as unreservedly to the passing hour as did the young
people around her.

All at once, Theodora pinched Hubert's arm, and laid her finger on her
lip. Her quick ear had caught the familiar sound of Billy's wheeled
chair, and, a moment later, Mrs. Farrington came in sight over the low
crest of the hill, followed by Patrick, whose face was flushed with the
exertion of pushing the chair along the pathless turf.

Absorbed in listening to Hope, Mrs. McAlister heard no sound until Mrs.
Farrington paused just behind her. Then she rose abruptly, and turned to
face her unexpected guests.

"This is rather an invasion," Mrs. Farrington was saying, with a little
air of apology; "but the maid said you were all out here, and she told
me to come in search of you."

For an instant, Mrs. McAlister gazed at her guest, at the slender figure
and the small oval face crowned with its masses of red-gold hair. Then,
to the surprise of every one but Theodora, she gave a joyous outcry,--

"Jessie Everett!"

"Bess!"

Side by side on the moss, a little apart from the others, the two women
dropped down and talked incoherently and rapidly, with an
interjectional, fragmentary eagerness, trying to tell in detail the
story of eighteen years in as many minutes, breaking off, again and
again, to exclaim at the strangeness of the chance which had once more
brought them together. On one side, the tale was the monotonous record
of the successful teacher; on the other was the story of the brilliant
marriage, the years of happiness, of seeing the best of life, and the
swift tragedy of six months before, which had taken away the husband and
left the only son a physical wreck. The years had swept the two friends
far apart; their desultory correspondence had dropped; and in this one
afternoon of their first meeting, they could only sketch in the bare
outlines, and leave time to do the rest.

"And this is my o