, I'll be over in the mornin'."

"You needn't," Sophy called after him. "I don't want any gardenin'
done," she cried the louder; but Jim paid no attention.

He was at the other gate now, leading into Eliza's grounds, and there he
found Eliza waiting for him. She looked older than her sister. She was
thinner, her eyes were sharp, and her chin was square and firm.

"Well," said she, "what is it?"

Jim hardly seemed to see her.

"Where's your pinies?" he asked.

Eliza resolutely refrained from looking at the grassy plot where they
sat in their neglected state.

"I dunno 's they're comin' up this year," she returned speciously.

"Yes, they be, too," said Jim, with vigor. He had gone straight over to
the spot where the juicy red-brown stalks were pushing up among the
grass. "Well, if I don't git round this fall an' feed up them pinies I
sha'n't have a wink o' sleep all winter."

Eliza had followed him, and now she stood regarding the peonies absently
and with almost a wistful curiosity, as if they recalled something she
had long forgotten to enjoy.

"I ain't done much in the gardin for a good many year," she said. "I got
kinder stiff, an' then I give it up. It's too late to do anything to 'em
now, I s'pose?"

"No, it ain't neither," said Jim. "I'll be round to-morrer an' git the
grass out an' put suthin' on to make 'em grow. Trouble is, 'tain't so
easy to do it in spring as 'tis in the fall, them stalks are so brittle.
Don't you touch 'em, now. I'll see to 'em myself."

Eliza followed him to the gate. She was curious, and yet she hardly knew
how to put her question with the indifference she sought. As he was
taking up his spade, she found the words:--

"What's started you up to come here arter so many years?"

His eyes dropped. The shaggy brows met over them in a defense.

"I kinder thought I would," said he. Then he went soberly back to his
own house.

Jim had no garden. Years ago, when his wife had left him, to run away
with another man, he had tried to wipe out every sign of his life with
her. It was in the early spring of the year when it happened, and the
first thing he did, after he came back from the field and found her
letter, was to drive the oxen into the home-plot and plough up the
garden she had loved. The next day he had harrowed it and sown it down
to grass, and then had taken to his bed, where the neighbors found him,
and, one and another, nursed him through his fever. When he got up
again,