Gold."

Yet, with all its uncertainty, the fiddler's touch groped for the
beauty and pathos of the chords:

"Darling, I am growing old,
Silver threads among the gold."

Janice heard the haunting sweetness of the tune all the way down the
shaded lane and she wondered who the player might be.

There was a deep, grass-grown ditch on one side--evidently an open
drain to carry the overflow of water from High Street. As the drain
deepened toward the bottom of the hill, posts had been set and rails
laid on top of them to defend vehicles from pitching into the ditch in
the dark. But many of the rails had now rotted and fallen to the sod,
or the nails had rusted and drawn out, leaving the barrier "jest
rattling."

From a side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low,
basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one
and a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two
old ladies showed themselves to be what they were--sisters.

The thin one was driving the piebald pony. "Gidap, Ginger!" she
announced, flapping the reins.

She had better have refrained from waking up Ginger just at that
moment. A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper
lying on the grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly
under the printed sheet, heaved it into the air.

Ginger caught a glimpse of the fluttering paper. He halted suddenly,
with all four feet braced and ears forward, fairly snorting his
surprise. As the paper began flopping across the road, he began to
back. The whites of his eyes showed plainly and he snorted again. The
wind-shaken paper utterly dissipated the pony's corn-fed complacency.

"Oh! Oh! Gidap!" shrieked the thin old lady.

"He--he's backin' us into the ditch, Pussy," cried her sister.

"I--I can't help it, Blossom," gasped the driver of the frightened pony.

The phaeton really was getting perilously near the edge of the
undefended ditch, when Janice ran out beside the pony's head, clutched
at his bridle, and halted him in his mad career. The paper dropped
into the ditch and lay still, and the pony began to nuzzle Janice's
hand.

"Isn't he just cunning!" gasped the girl, turning to look at the two
little old ladies.

From a nearby house appeared a lath-like man, who strode out to the
road, grinning broadly.

"Hi tunket! Ye did come purty nigh backin' into the ditch _that_ time,
gals," he cackled. "All right now,