tedly. She had been for the mail, and as she drove the amenable
horse over the homeward road she strained her eyes to read the last page
of an unusually absorbing letter, for it was again sundown, and the
Granger twins again sat in their doorways. There was a decided chill in
the air, this late afternoon. The old men, though they were sturdy
still, had put on their coats, and from behind them the comfortable glow
of two stove doors promised a later hour of warmth and comfort. Their
aspect was more melancholy than usual, whether it were that the
bleakness of winter seemed pressing close upon the bleakness of lonely
age, or that there was an added weariness in the droop of the thin
shoulders and the fixed eyes--it was certain that the picture had gained
a shadow of depression.

For once, Cynthia was not thinking of them as she drew near. The reins
were loose in her hand, and as she bent to catch the waning light, an
open newspaper, which she had laid carelessly on the seat beside her,
was lifted by a transient gust of wind and tossed almost over her
horse's head. No horse, of whatever serenity, can be thus treated
without resentment. He jerked the reins from her heedless hands, made a
sharp turn to avoid the white, wavering, inconsequent thing at his feet,
a wheel caught in a neighboring boulder, and Cynthia was spilled out
just in front of the Granger house and midway between the twins. In a
common impulse of fright the two old men started to their feet. For an
instant they paused to judge of the situation, but it was no time for
fine distinctions. The accident had, to all appearances, happened as
near one as the other, and meanwhile a young and pretty woman lay
unsuccored upon the ground. It became a point of honor to yield nothing
to an ignored companion. As speedily as their years allowed, Stephen and
Reuben marched to the rescue. The horse, meanwhile, had dragged the
overturned wagon but a few yards, and had stopped of his own reasonable
accord. As Cynthia raised herself rather confusedly and quite convinced
that she was killed, her first impression was that the angels were older
than she had fancied, and looked very much like the Granger twins. But
in a few seconds her balance of mind was restored, she realized that
while there was life there was hope, and that for the first time in her
experience the eyes of Reuben and Stephen were fixed solicitously upon a
common object, that each of them had stretched out to her a