uch unwelcome illumination.

* * * * *

In those days of first bud and leaf Dorothy Thornton looked out of her
window with a psychological anxiety. If the first hint of life that came
to the great tree were diseased or marked with blight, it would be an
omen of ill under which she did not see how she could face her hour, and
with fevered eyes she searched the gray branches where the sap was
rising and studied the earliest tinge of green.

"Ef harm hed done come ter hit," she argued with herself, "hit would
show, by this time, in them leetle buds an' tossels," but she was not
satisfied, and reaching through the attic window she broke off from day
to day bits of twig to see whether the vitality of rising sap or the
brittleness of death proclaimed itself in the wood.

Slowly, under soft air and rain, the buds broke into tiny spears, too
small and tender, it seemed to her, to live against the unkind touch of
harsh winds, and the rudimentary filaments spread and grew into leaves.

But the time that seemed to Dorothy to lag so interminably was passing,
and the veils of misty green that had scarcely showed through the
forest grays were growing to an emerald vividness. Waxen masses of
laurel were filling out and flushing with the pink of blossom. The
heavy-fragranced bloom of the locust drooped over those upturned
chalices of pink, and the black walnut was gaunt no more, but as
brightly and lustily youthful as a troubador whom age had never touched.

Warm with swelling life and full throated with bird music the beginnings
of summer came to the hills, and the hills forgot their grimness.

But Old Jim Rowlett, over there in his house, was failing fast, men
said. He prattled childishly, and his talon-like hands were pitifully
palsied. He would scarcely see another spring, and in the fight that was
coming his wise old tongue would no longer be available for counsel. So
toward the younger and more robust influence of Parish Thornton his
adherents turned in his stead.

In those places where secret night sessions were held were the stir of
preparation and the talk of punishing a traitor--for young Pete had
deserted the cause, and the plotters were divided in sentiment. A
majority advocated striking with stunning suddenness toward the major
purpose and ignoring the disaffection of the one young renegade, but a
fiercer minority was for making him an example, and cool counsels were
being taxed.

T