nt face. "What has come to
you to-day? Go away now to your work," she added in her former tone,
"there's the hay waiting, you know well. Go now and I'll watch the
grist."

"And why would you watch the grist, mother?" said a voice from the
mill door, as a young man of eighteen years stepped inside. He was his
mother's son. The same swarthy, rugged face, the same deep-set, sombre
eyes, the same suggestion of strength in every line of his body, of
power in every move he made and of passion in every glance. "Indeed, you
will do no such thing. Dad'll watch the grist and I'll slash down the
hay in no time. And do you know, mother," he continued in a tone of
suppressed excitement, "have you heard the big news?" His mother waited.
"He's coming home to-day. He's coming with the Murrays, and Alec will
bring him to the raising."

A throb of light swept across the mother's face, but she only said in a
voice calm and steady, "Well, you'd better get that hay down. It'll be
late enough before it is in."

"Listen to her, Barney," cried her husband scornfully. "And she'll not
be going to the raising today, either. The boy'll be home by one in the
morning, and sure that's time enough."

Barney stood looking at his mother with a quiet smile on his face. "We
will have dinner early," he said, "and I'll just take a turn at the
hay."

She turned and entered the house without a word, while he took down the
scythe from its peg, removed the blade from the snath and handed it to
his father.

"Give it a turn or two," he said; "you're better than me at this."

"Here then," replied his father, handing him the violin, "and you're
better at this."

"They would not say so to-night, Dad," replied the lad as he took the
violin from his father's hands, looking it over reverently. In a very
few minutes his father came back with the scythe ready for work; and
Barney, fastening it to the snath, again set off up the lane.

II

THE DAUGHTER OF THE MANSE

Two hours later, down from the dusty sideroad, a girl swinging a milk
pail in her hand turned into the mill lane. As she stepped from the
glare and dust of the highroad into the lane, it seemed as if Nature had
been waiting to find in her the touch that makes perfect; so truly, in
all her fresh daintiness, did she seem a bit of that green shady lane
with its sweet fragrance and its fresh beauty.

It had taken sixteen years of wholesome country life to round that
supple form into its fi