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convent, where she had been at school, she saw him and fell in love with
him. Grandfather Duquesne made an awful fuss, but he let her marry him."

Lucy threw back her head with one of her rippling laughs.

"He had to," she added merrily. "Mother'd have married Dad anyway."

Ellen studied the tea grounds in the bottom of her cup thoughtfully.

How strange it was to picture Thomas the hero of a romance like this! She
had heard that once in his life every man became a poet; probably this was
Thomas's era of transformation.

Her reverie was broken by the gentle voice of Lucy, who observed:

"And that's what I'd do, too."

"What?" inquired Ellen vaguely. In her reverie about Thomas she had lost
the connection.

"Marry the man I loved no matter what anybody said. Wouldn't you?"

"I--I--don't know," stammered Ellen, getting to her feet with
embarrassment at having a love affair thrust so intimately upon her.
"Mebbe. I must go back now to Tony an' the weedin'. When you get cleared
up round here, there's plenty of mendin' to be done. You'll find that
hamper full of stockin's to be darned."

After Ellen had gone out, Lucy did not rise immediately from the table,
but sat watching the clouds that foamed up behind the maples on the crest
of the nearby hill. A glory of sunshine bathed the earth, and she could
see the coral of the apple buds sway against the sky. It was no day to sit
within doors and darn socks. All Nature beckoned, and to Lucy, used from
birth to being in the open, the alluring gesture was irresistible.

With sudden resolve she sprang up, cleared away the confused remnants of
the meal before her, dashed to her room for a scarlet sweater, and fled
into the radiant world outside.

She followed the driveway until it joined the road, and then, after
hesitating an instant, turned in the direction of the Howe farm. A
mischievous light danced in her brown eyes, and a smile curved her lips.

The road along which she passed was bordered on either side by walls of
gray stone covered with shiny-leaved ivy and flanked by a checkerboard of
pastures roughly dotted with clumps of hardback and boles of protruding
rock. Great brakes grew in the shady hollows, and from the woods beyond
came the cool, moist perfume of moss and ferns.

The girl looked about her with delight. Then she began to sing softly to
herself and jingle rhythmically the coins in her pocket.

It was nearly a quarter of a mile to the Howes'