ngs for me to mend when I
return; I cannot ask Effie to darn such holes for two little moles; she
is only engaged to sew for boys."

"But, mother, you don't like to sew stockings; it makes you tight in your
chest. I heard you tell father so," objected Richard, while Ian's face
quivered and reddened, and he pounded his fists together, saying to
himself, "Barbara shall _not_ sit in the house and mend moles'
stockings. I won't let her," showing that they were both touched in a
tender spot.

Father only laughed when they went in, and said: "I'm glad you didn't do
anything more than that to the little chaps, daughter; it's only a bit of
boy life and impulse working in them, after all; their natural way of
cooling the 'sweating of the corn.'" Then we drove away through the lanes
draped with birch tassels and willow wands, while bloodroot and
marshmarigold kept pace in the runnels, and I heard the twitter of the
first barn-swallow of the year.

As we drove along we talked or were silent without apology and according
to mood; and as father outlined his route to me, I resolved that I would
call upon Horace Bradford's mother, for our way lay in that direction.

Many things filled father's mind aside from the beauty of the perfect
April day, that held even the proper suggestion of hidden showers behind
the curtain of hazy sunshine. The sweating of the human corn that came
under father's eye was not always to be cured by air and sun, or rather,
those who turned uneasily would not accept the cure.

The germ of unrest is busy in the village this spring. Not that it is
wholly new, for unrest is wherever people congregate. But this year the
key is altered somewhat. The sight of careless ease, life without
labour, and a constant change of pleasures, that obtain in the Bluff
Colony, is working harm. True, the people can always read of this life in
book and paper, but to come in direct contact is another thing. Father
said the other day that he wished that conservative country places that
had lived respected and respectable lives for years could have the power
to socially quarantine all newcomers before they were allowed to purchase
land and set a pace that lured the young cityward at any cost. I, too,
realize that the striving in certain quarters is no longer for home and
love and happy times, but for something new, even if it is merely for the
sake of change, and that this infection of social unrest is quickly
spreading downward fr