plied with the hammer he was apt to drop at
critical moments. They talked pretty constantly at their labors, and in
their leisure, which they spent on the brown needles under the pines at
the side of the house. Sometimes the hammering or the talking would be
interrupted by a voice calling, from a passing vehicle in the hidden
roadway, something about urns. Claxon would answer, without troubling
himself to verify the inquirer; or moving from his place, that he would
get round to them, and then would hammer on, or talk on with Clementina.

One day in October a carriage drove up to the door, after the work on the
house had been carried as far as Claxon's mood and money allowed, and he
and Clementina were picking up the litter of his carpentering. He had
replaced the block of wood which once served at the front door by some
steps under an arbor of rustic work; but this was still so novel that the
younger children had not outgrown their pride in it and were playing at
house-keeping there. Clementina ran around to the back door and out
through the front entry in time to save the visitor and the children from
the misunderstanding they began to fall into, and met her with a smile of
hospitable brilliancy, and a recognition full of compassionate welcome.

Mrs. Lander gave way to her tears as she broke out, "Oh, it ain't the way
it was the last time I was he'a! You hea'd that he--that Mr. Landa--"

"Mrs. Atwell told me," said Clementina. "Won't you come in, and sit
down?"

"Why, yes." Mrs. Lander pushed in through the narrow door of what was to
be the parlor. Her crapes swept about her and exhaled a strong scent of
their dyes. Her veil softened her heavy face; but she had not grown
thinner in her bereavement.

"I just got to the Middlemount last night," she said, "and I wanted to
see you and your payrents, both, Miss Claxon. It doos bring him back so!
You won't neva know how much he thought of you, and you'll all think I'm
crazy. I wouldn't come as long as he was with me, and now I have to come
without him; I held out ag'inst him as long as I had him to hold out
ag'inst. Not that he was eva one to push, and I don't know as he so much
as spoke of it, afta we left the hotel two yea's ago; but I presume it
wa'n't out of his mind a single minute. Time and time again I'd say to
him, 'Now, Albe't, do you feel about it just the way you done?' and he'd
say, 'I ha'r't had any call to charge my mind about it,' and then I'd
begin tryin'