dwells'. Then the sound of horses' hoofs rang on the
cobblestones, and, looking past the corner, she saw Oliver and Abby
galloping under the wine-coloured leaves of the oak tree at the
crossing. His face was turned back, as if he were looking over his
shoulder at the red sunset, and he was laughing as she had not heard him
laugh since that dreadful morning in the bedroom of the New York hotel.
What a boy he was still! As she watched him, it seemed to her that she
was old enough to be his mother, and the soreness in her heart changed
into an exquisite impulse of tenderness. Then he looked from the sunset
to Abby, and at the glance of innocent pleasure that passed between them
a stab of jealousy entered her heart like a blade. Before it faded, they
had passed the corner, and were cantering wildly up Old Street in the
direction of Abby's home.

"It is my fault. I am too settled. I am letting my youth go," she said,
with a passionate determination to catch her girlhood and hold it fast
before it eluded her forever. "I am only twenty-eight and I dress like a
woman of forty." And it seemed to her that the one desirable thing in
life was this fleet-winged spirit of youth, which passed like a breath,
leaving existence robbed of all romance and beauty. An hour before she
had not cared, and she would not care now if only Oliver could grow
middle-aged and old at the moment when she did. Ah, there was the
tragedy! All life was for men, and only a few radiant years of it were
given to women. Men were never too old to love, to pursue and capture
whatever joy the fugitive instant might hold for them. But women, though
they were allowed only one experience out of the whole of life, were
asked to resign even that one at the very minute when they needed it
most. "I wonder what will become of me when the children grow big enough
to be away all the time as Oliver is," she thought wistfully. "I wish
one never grew too old to have babies."

The front door of the Treadwell house stood open, and in the hall Susan
was arranging golden-rod and life-ever-lasting in a blue china bowl.

"Of course, you may have Belle to-morrow," she said in answer to
Virginia's faltering request. "Even if I intended going, I'd be only too
glad to lend her to you--but I can't leave mother anyway. She always
gets restless if I stay out over an hour."

Mrs. Treadwell's illness had become one of those painful facts which
people accept as naturally as they accept the