ote to me every week."

"Now, Mother----"

"Well, you did."

"But I'm that kind. I have to get things off my mind. Truxton isn't. And
I'll bet when Aunt Claudia does get his letters that they are worth
reading."

Mrs. Beaufort nodded. "They are lovely letters. I have the last one with
me; would you like to hear it?"

"Not before lunch, Claudia," the Judge urged.

"I will read it while the rest of you eat." There were red spots in Mrs.
Beaufort's cheeks. She adored her son. She could not understand her
father's critical attitude. Had she searched for motives, however, she
might have found them in the Judge's jealousy.

It was while she was reading Truxton's letter that the Flippins came
by--Mr. Flippin and his wife, Mary, and little Fidelity. A slender
mulatto woman followed with a basket.

The Flippins were one of the "second families." Between them and the
Paines of King's Crest and the Bannisters of Huntersfield stretched a
deep chasm of social prejudice. Three generations of Flippins had been
small farmers on rented lands. They had no coats-of-arms or family
trees. They were never asked to dine with the Paines or Bannisters, but
there had been always an interchange of small hospitalities, and much
neighborliness, and as children Mary Flippin, Randy and Becky and
Truxton had played together and had been great friends.

So it was now as they stopped to speak to the Judge's party that Mrs.
Beaufort said graciously, "I am reading a letter from Truxton. Would you
like to hear it?"

Mary, speaking with a sort of tense eagerness, said, "Yes."

So the Flippins sat down, and Mrs. Beaufort read in her pleasant voice
the letter from France.

Randy, lying on his back under the old oak, listened. Truxton gave a
joyous diary of the days--little details of the towns through which he
passed, of the houses where he was billeted, jokes of the men, of the
food they ate, of his hope of coming home.

"He seems very happy," said Mrs. Beaufort, as she finished.

"He is and he isn't----"

"You might make yourself a little clearer, Randolph," said the Judge.

"He is happy because France in summer is a pleasant sort of
Paradise--with the cabbages stuck up on the brown hillsides like
rosettes--and the minnows flashing in the little brooks and the old
mills turning--and he isn't happy--because he is homesick."

Randy raised himself on his elbow and smiled at his listening
audience--and as he smiled he was aware of a change