The public were in the main divided
into two classes in their estimate of him--those who felt the force of
his religion, and argued therefrom that his opinions were to be
respected; and those who believed that his mind was insane, and argued
therefrom that his religion was either a fancy or a farce. At first
there was a great deal of talk about whether he should be put in a
madhouse or not; some called Harkness a philanthropist, and others
called him a meddling fellow. Soon, very soon, there was less talk:
that which is everybody's business is nobody's business. Harkness
continued to befriend him in the matter of food and lodging; the old man
grew to be at home in the Harmon house and its neglected surroundings.
When the will to do so seized him, he went into the village and lifted
up his voice, and preached the exactions of the love of the Son of God,
proclaiming that He would come again, and that quickly.

The winter days had grown very long; the sun had passed the vernal
equinox, and yet it looked upon unbroken snowfields. Then, about the
middle of April, the snow passed quickly away in blazing sunshine, in a
thousand rivulets, in a flooded river. The roads were heavy with mud,
but the earth was left green, the bud of spring having been nurtured
beneath the kindly shelter of the snow.

CHAPTER XII.

Now came the most lovely moment of the year. All the trees were putting
forth new leaves, leaves so young, so tiny as yet, that one could see
the fowls of the air when they lodged in the branches--no small
privilege, for now the orange oriole, and the bluebird, and the
primrose-coloured finch, were here, there, and everywhere; and more
rarely the scarlet tanager. A few days before and they had not come; a
few days more and larger leaves would hide them perfectly. Just at this
time, too, along the roadsides, big hawthorn shrubs and wild plum were
in blossom, and in the sheltered fields the mossy sod was pied with
white and purple violets, whose flowerets so outstripped their
half-grown leaves that blue and milky ways were seen in woodland glades.

With the sense of freedom that comes with the thus sudden advent of the
young summer, Winifred Rexford strayed out of the house one morning.
She did not mean to go, and when she went through the front gate she
only meant to go as far as the first wild plum-tree, to see if the white
bloom was turning purple yet, as Principal Trenholme had told her it
would. When she g