when Amos swung into the yard with the oxen, she was
remorsefully conscious of heaving a sigh of relief; and she bade him in
to the cup of tea ready for him by the fire with a sympathetic sense
that too little was made of Amos, and that perhaps only she, at that
moment, understood his habitual frame of mind. He drank his tea in
silence, the while aunt Ann, with much relish, consumed doughnuts and
cheese, having spread a wide handkerchief in her lap to catch the
crumbs. Amos never varied in his role of automaton; and Amelia talked
rapidly, in the hope of protecting him from verbal avalanches. But she
was not to succeed. At the very moment of parting, aunt Ann, enthroned
in her chair, with a clogging stick under the rockers, called a halt,
just as the oxen gave their tremulous preparatory heave.

"Amos!" cried she, "I'll be whipped if you've spoke one word to 'Melia
this livelong day! If you ain't ashamed, I be! If you can't speak, I
can!"

Amos paused, with his habitual resignation to circumstances, but Amelia
sped forward and clapped him cordially on the arm; with the other hand,
she dealt one of the oxen a futile blow.

"Huddup, Bright!" she called, with a swift, smiling look at Amos. Even
in kindness she would not do him the wrong of an unnecessary word.
"Good-by, aunt Ann! Come again!"

Amos turned half about, the goad over his shoulder. His dull-seeming
eyes had opened to a gleam of human feeling, betraying how bright and
keen they were. Some hidden spring had been touched, though only they
would tell its story. Amelia thought it was gratitude. And then aunt
Ann, nodding her farewells in assured contentment with herself and all
the world, was drawn slowly out of the yard.

When Amelia went indoors and warmed her chilled hands at the fire, the
silence seemed to her benignant. What was loneliness before had
miraculously translated itself into peace. That worldly voice, strangely
clothing her own longings with form and substance, had been stilled;
only the clock, rich in the tranquillity of age, ticked on, and the cat
stretched herself and curled up again. Amelia sat down in the waning
light and took a last stitch in her work; she looked the coat over
critically with an artistic satisfaction, and then hung it behind the
door in its accustomed place, where it had remained undisturbed now for
many months. She ate soberly and sparingly of her early supper, and
then, leaving the lamp on a side-table, where it brought