occasional visits
to her neighbours. As it was her custom never to call without bearing
tribute in the form of fruit or preserves, she placed a jar of red
currant jelly into a little basket, and started for her walk, holding it
tightly in her black worsted gloves. She knew that if Molly divined her
purpose she would hardly accept the gift, but the force of habit was
too strong for her, and she felt that she could not start out to make a
visit with empty hands.

Her chief anxiety was to be gone before Abel should return, and for
this reason she left the house by the back door, and chose the small,
descending path that led through the willows to Jordan's Journey. As
she neared the brook a bow of blue ribbon hanging on a branch caught
her eye, and she recognized a bit of the trimming from Blossom's Sunday
dress. Releasing it she put it into her pocket, with the resolve that
she would reprove her granddaughter for wearing her best clothes in such
unsuitable places. Then her thoughts returned to the immediate object
of her visit, and she told herself sternly that she would let Molly
Merryweather know her opinion of her while there was yet time for the
girl to withdraw from the marriage. That she was wronging her son by
exerting such despotic authority was the last thought that would have
occurred to her. A higher morality than that of ordinary mortals had
guided her in the past, and she followed it now.

When she reached the rail fence, she found some difficulty in climbing
it, since her legs had grown rheumatic with the cold weather; but by
letting the basket down first on a forked stick, she managed to ease
herself gently over to the opposite side. Here she rested, while she
carefully brushed away the dried pollen from the golden-rod, which was
staining her dress. Then regaining her strength after a minute, she
pushed on under the oak trees, where the moist, dead leaves made a soft,
velvety sound, to the apple orchard and the sunken flagged walk that led
to the overseer's cottage.

In the sunshine on the porch Reuben Merryweather was sitting; and at
sight of his visitor, he rose, with a look of humble surprise, and
invited her into the house. His manner toward her was but a smaller
expression of his mental attitude to the universe. That he possessed
any natural rights as an individual had never occurred to him; and the
humility with which he existed gave place only to the mild astonishment
which filled him at any recogn