. Two women were seated on the
worn stone slab in the opening that served for a gate, evidently
basking in the afternoon sun and engaged in desultory chat. When Leigh
dismounted from his wheel and asked for a drink of water, they moved
slightly to let him pass, and he went up to the well to help himself.
He lowered and raised the dripping bucket, not without awkwardness and
a sense of pleasure in the unaccustomed task, as well as a memory of
the poem which had immortalized that simple operation. It required
only a casual glance about to see that this was a poultry farm. At the
back of the house he saw a number of chicken runs, where a man was
engaged in repair work. The air was filled with the comfortable
clucking of hens, the most cheerful of country sounds. From his
present slight elevation he had a view also of the trolley line which
bisected the farm and crossed the road a few yards further on.

As he paused, before going on his way, to thank the women for their
courtesy, he was struck, as he had not been at first, by the appearance
of the younger. So delicate she seemed, so daintily dressed, that he
wondered to find her in this rustic setting. In her lap she held a
small basket of eggs, and he guessed correctly that she was a visitor,
waiting for the next car to Warwick. He asked the distance to his
destination, and from her appeal to the older woman he learned that
they were mother and daughter. During these few moments he began to
realise that she might well be called a beauty, though her pale,
ethereal type was not one that made a personal appeal to him. Her
whole figure was steept in sunshine, and as her lips parted in a smile,
he noticed how the strong rays penetrated her cheeks, filling her mouth
with a faint pink light and intensifying the whiteness of her teeth.
Just so they penetrated the shells of the white eggs in her basket.

This picture remained with him for some time. The girl had appeared
almost as fragile as the burden she carried, and suggested a train of
thought concerning a certain type of New Englander whose strength is
spent. It was such people, he reflected, who still clung to the old
soil whence the sturdier representatives of the stock had long since
departed, destined to give way at last to the swarming Polack, the
French Canadian, and the Italian. The thought was melancholy, and
coloured to no little extent the remainder of his ride. This incident,
which was only one of se