ing I felt a curious warmth of
satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
are to be found upon this miraculous earth.

* * * * *

I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----

Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.

He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.

"He also belongs here," I said.

And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
that something human, in passing, had touched me.

VII

AN OLD MAID

One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
important in a country community, of a sensitive social
tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
come to ours.

She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
than in our own. All her life