house
to the woodshed, found a trowel among the garden tools, and then made
her way into the night. The sky was overcast, hiding the stars, but
the flitting fire-flies outlined strange constellations against the
velvety darkness. Persis groped her way through the dewy grass toward
the syringa bush, guided as much by the odor of blossoms as by sight,
and falling on her knees used her trowel industriously for many
minutes. And when the grave was deep enough, she laid the plush frame
into its recesses, hiding the smile she once had loved with heaped-up
earth. Since so many of her girlish hopes were covered by that same
earth, it is not strange that her tears fell upon the little mound.

"I'm going to miss that picture same as if it was alive. It was always
smiling so cheerful that it cheered me just to look at it. But when a
thing's dead, it ought to be buried, and as it is, I guess this funeral
is pretty near twenty years behind time."

CHAPTER XX

CHECKMATE

In spite of the lack of success which had attended his tentative
wooing, Justin Ware slept soundly, woke cheerful and made a comfortable
breakfast. Over his coffee and pancakes he outlined not the plans for
a systematic siege of Persis' affections, but the maneuver through
which he hoped to carry the Hornblower citadel by storm. He had used
no meaningless figure of speech when he assured Annabel of his practise
of making pleasure secondary to business. Robert Hornblower's
resistance had piqued and baffled him, the more as he knew that Mrs.
Hornblower was his uncompromising ally. Indeed his presence in
Clematis at this juncture was due to a letter from this invaluable
colleague, casually mentioning that her husband had received an offer
for the farm which she wished he might be induced to accept. "While I
leave all such matters for Robert to decide, as I consider to be a
wife's _plain_ duty," wrote Mrs. Hornblower, with a lavish use of
italics, "I have not hesitated to tell him that I think his closing
with the offer is for the best interests of us all." And Justin had
interpreted the communication to mean that his confederate believed the
day of victory at hand.

He finished his breakfast at an early hour, judged by metropolitan
standards, selected the most promising animal from the sorry exhibition
of horse-flesh in the local livery and drove out to the Hornblower
farm, smoking on the way a better cigar than could be bought in
Clematis, and