affection. On the rosy hillsides white lambs were leaping
and bleating, or running down out of sight under the white sea-fog
of the valleys. A milk cart rattled along the turnpike toward the
town.

It had become broad day.

He started up and crossed the hall to the bedroom opposite, and
stood looking down at his younger brother. How quiet Dent's sleep
was; how clear the current of his life had run and would run
always! No tragedy would ever separate him and the woman he loved.

When he went downstairs the perfect orderliness of his mother's
housekeeping had been before him. Doors and windows had been
opened to the morning freshness, sweeping and dusting had been
done, not a servant was in sight. His setters lay waiting on the
porch and as he stepped out they hurried up with glistening eyes
and soft barkings and followed him as he passed around to the barn.
Work was in progress there: the play of currycombs, the whirl of
the cutting-box, the noise of the mangers, the bellowing of calves,
the rich streamy sounds of the milking. He called his men to him
one after another, laying out the work of the day.

When he returned to the house he saw his mother walking on the
front pavement; she held flowers freshly plucked for the breakfast
table: a woman of large mould, grave, proud, noble; an ideal of her
place and time.

"Is the lord of the manor ready for his breakfast?" she asked as
she came forward, smiling.

"I am ready, mother," he replied without smiling, touching his lips
to her cheek.

She linked her arm in his as they ascended the steps. At the top
she drew him gently around until they faced the landscape rolling
wide before them.

"It is so beautiful!" she exclaimed with a deep narrow love of her
land. "I never see it without thinking of it as it will be years
hence. I can see you riding over it then and your children playing
around the house and some one sitting here where we stand, watching
them at their play and watching you in the distance at your work.
But I have been waiting a long time for her to take my place--and
to take her own," and she leaned heavily on his arm as a sign of
her dependence but out of weakness also (for she did not tell him
all). "I am impatient to hear the voice of your children, Rowan.
Do you never wish to hear them yourself?"

As they stood silent, footsteps approached through the hall and
turning they saw Dent with a book in his hand.

"Are you grand people neve