eadow below into an orchard, and had even managed to set
out the first half of the little trees, slim, tiny saplings that
dotted the sloping green.

"We will put in the others next autumn and spring," Felix said, "and I
will be building new cupboards and shelves for old Chloe in the
kitchen, I will mend the press in Barbara's room and I will finish off
the garret chamber under the eaves for myself, and there I can play
the fiddle to my heart's content and never disturb you at all. I think
that life will be very pleasant here."

So their lives swung into the new channel, with Chloe, Barbara's old
nurse, to cook for them and with Felix to tend the apple trees and the
little garden, to saw and hammer and whistle all day at the task of
setting the new place in order.

"It's a pity you haven't a proper, handsome house, with long windows
from the ceiling to the floor and a high roof and a carved front door
and with black marble chimneypieces instead of these rough stone
fireplaces," Chloe would sigh, for she thought that the elegance of
that time was none too good for the people she loved. It may be that
Ralph sighed with her, but Felix and Barbara were frankly delighted
with the painted floors, the casement windows, and the low, big-beamed
rooms. In the evenings, as the two would sit on the wide doorstep, the
voice of Felix's violin would mingle with the voice of the wind in the
oak, while Barbara listened, entranced, for her brother was a real
master of his instrument. It would laugh and sing and sigh, while
Barbara pressed closer and closer to his knee while the stars came out
and the evening breeze stirred the hollyhocks and the great branches
of the oak tree. Ralph rode every day to the town to labor over heavy
account books in his cramped little office and he always brought home
a sheaf of papers under his arm. He would sit at the table inside the
window in the candlelight and, as the music rose outside, singing to
the child and the flowers and the stars, he would scowl and fidget and
tap irritably on the table with the point of his pen, for he did not
love his brother's playing.

"There is too much time spent on it," he would say, "when you might be
doing useful things."

"I have no head for adding up your endless columns of dollars and
cents," Felix would answer, "so I must make myself useful in my own
way."

A warm, golden October had painted the valley with blazing colors, had
turned the oak tree to ruddy br