angle of brakes in the pasture came
the lowing of cattle. A faint sweetness from budding apple trees filled
the room. Radiating, narrowing away toward the sky line, row after row of
low green shoots barred the brown earth of the hillside with the promise
of coming harvest. It was a goodly sight,--that plowed land with its lines
of upspringing seeds. A goodly sight, too, were the broad mowings stirring
gently with the sweep of the western breeze.

Ellen regarded the panorama before her musingly. Then she seated herself
at the old desk and with deliberation began to write a reply to her
brother's child.

She was old, she wrote, and her health was failing; at any time she might
find herself helpless and ill. There was no one to care for her or bear
her company. If Lucy would come to Sefton Falls and live, her aunt would
be glad to give her a home.

"As yet," concluded the diplomat, with a Machiavelian stroke of the pen,
"I have made no will; but I suppose I shall not be able to take the
Webster lands and money with me into the next world. You are my only
relative. Think well before making your decision."

After she had signed and blotted the terse missive, Ellen perused its
lines, and her sharp eyes twinkled. It was a good letter, a capital
letter! Without actually promising anything, it was heavy with insidious
bribery.

Be the girl of whatsoever type she might, some facet of the note could not
fail to lure her hither. If a loyal Webster, family obligation would be
the bait; if conscientious, plain duty stared her in the face; if
mercenary, dreams of an inherited fortune would tempt her. The trap was
inescapable.

In the meantime to grant a home to her orphan flesh and blood would appeal
to the outside world as an act of Christian charity, and at the same time
would save hiring the help she had for some time feared she would be
driven to secure,--a fact that did not escape the woman's cunning mind.

She was not so strong as formerly, and of late the toil of the farm taxed
her endurance. There was milking, sewing, the housework, and the care of
the chickens; enough to keep ten pairs of hands busy, let alone one. Oh,
Lucy should earn her board, never fear!

As nearly as the aunt could calculate, her niece must now be about twenty
years old,--a fine, vigorous age! Doubtless, too, the girl was of buxom
Western build, for although Thomas had not married until late in life, his
wife had been a youthful woman of the min