en
imagined such a thing ever being possible. He cast about in his mind to
think of some answer that would not hurt his grandfather's feelings.

"Well, perhaps not quite as old as you, Granpa!" he said; "as old as
Daddy; not with white hair like you--just a grown-up man."

"Jim ...!" came the voice again more insistently, and his mother
appeared at the back door and stood framed in its arch of carved
granite. Marjorie Ruan was still a fine young woman; her thirty-odd
years sat lightly upon her. Her tanned skin and the full column of her
long, bare throat gave her a look of exuberant health. She was dressed
in a smart suit of white linen and her brown head was bare.

"Have you been having a ride?" she asked. "But you mustn't stop when I
call you, you know! You shouldn't keep him when he ought to come,
Granpa!" The grandfather remained unperturbed. He liked and admired
Marjorie, but there were times when he considered her manners left
something to be desired. Jim ran into the house, and Marjorie,
shepherding him in with a sweeping motion of her strong, big arm,
disappeared also, curved a little over him. Ishmael was left alone in
the yard, stroking the velvet-soft muzzle of the waiting horse.

Ishmael made a fine figure as he stood there, a little stooped, but
handsome in his thin old way, with his strongly-modelled nose and his
dark hazel eyes deep-set beneath the shaggy white brows. He was
clean-shaven, and the fine curve of his jaw, always rather pointed than
heavy, gave a touch of the priestly which looked oddly alien with his
loose Norfolk jacket and corduroy breeches and the brown leather gaiters
that protected his thin old legs. His close-cropped grey head was
uncovered, and he still carried it well; he looked his years, but bore
them bravely, nevertheless.

"You are going to finish sowing the four-acre to-day?" he asked the man
who came out from a shed leading another horse. "I shall come along
myself later on. Mind you regulate the feed of the drill carefully; it's
not been working quite well lately." He stood watching a moment while
the man harnessed the horses to the big drill, which, standing quiescent
now, was soon to rattle and clank over the ploughed and harrowed earth
of the four-acre field. Then he turned, and, going through the house,
went out on to the lawn, where on a long chair in the sun, carefully
swathed in shawls, an old lady was lying.

"Have you everything you want, Judy?" he asked, sittin