appy, too; he could hear her occasional laughter and the murmur
of her voice as she swung in the hammock at the corner of the house with
Dr. Harpe. On his right, he heard the unceasing click of Grandmother
Kunkel's needles as they flew in and out upon the top row of the woollen
stocking that was never done. It was a pleasing domestic scene and he
opened his eyes lazily to enjoy it. They sought the hammock and their
listlessness was gradually replaced by an intentness of gaze which
became a stare.

"Grandmother," he said after a time, and he noticed that her mouth was a
tight pucker of displeasure, though she seemed to have eyes only for her
work. "You remember our conversation some time ago--have you changed
your opinion in regard to the person we discussed?"

In the look she flashed at him he read not only the answer to his
question but something of the fierce emotion which was finding vent in
her flying needles.

"I haven't!" she snapped.

"You truly believe that her influence over Augusta is not good?"

She leaned toward him in quiet intensity--

"Believe it? I _know_ it! I've been prayin' that you might see it
yourself before it is too late."

"Too late? What do you mean?"

"Just what I say." Her old chin trembled. "Before Augusta has lost every
spark of affection for you and me--before I am sent away."

He looked at her incredulously.

"You don't mean that?"

She nodded.

"I've been warned already. I'm in Dr. Harpe's way; she knows what I
think of her, and she'd rather have some stranger here."

"You amaze me. Does she dominate Augusta to such an extent as that!"

His mind ran back over the events of the past few weeks and he could see
that those occasions from which Dr. Harpe had been excluded had seemed
flat, stale, footless to Augusta. She had been absent-minded,
preoccupied, even openly bored. He recalled the fact now that it was
only at this woman's coming that animation had returned and that she had
hung absorbed, fascinated upon her words. She became alive in her
presence as though she drew her very vitality from this stronger-willed
woman.

"I've noticed a change--but I thought it was nerves--the altitude,
perhaps--and I've intended taking her with me on my next trip East."

"She wouldn't go."

"I can't believe that."

"Ask her," was the grim reply.

"She obeyed me in that other matter," Symes argued.

"Because she was _allowed_ to do so."

"I'm going to stop this intimacy; I'm t