sweet care. But
he's going to be our best and nearest friend, mother,--he and Ruth and
Godfrey, together and alike. We've so agreed, Arthur and I. Oh, I'm not
going to come in here and turn the sweet old nickname of this happy spot
into a sneer."

"Then why are you not happy, precious?"

"Happy? Why, my dear, I am happy!"

"With touches of heartache?"

"Oh, with big wrenches of heartache! Why not? Were you never so?"

"I'm so right now, dearie. For after all is said"--

"And thought that can't be said"--murmured Isabel.

"Yes," replied the mother, "after all is said and thought, I should
rather give you to Arthur than to any other man I know. Leonard will
have a shining career, but it will be in politics."

"I tried to dissuade him," broke in the daughter, "till I was ashamed."

"In politics," continued Mrs. Morris,--"and Northern politics, Isabel.
Arthur's will be in the church!"

"Yes," said the other, but her whole attention was within the fence at
their side, where a rough stile, made in boyhood days by the two
brothers and Leonard, led over into the garden. She sprang up. "Let's
go, mother; he's coming!"

"Who, my child?"

"Both! Come, dear, come quickly! Oh, I don't know why we ever came out
at all!"

"My dear, it was you proposed it, lest some one should come in!"

The daughter had moved some steps down the road, but now turned again;
for Ruth and Godfrey, returning, came out through the garden's high
gateway. However, they were giving all their smiles to the greetings
which the General sent them from his piazza.

"Come over, mother!" called Isabel, in a stifled voice. "Cross to the
hill path!" But before they could reach it Arthur and Leonard came into
full view on the stile. Isabel motioned her mother despairingly toward
them, wheeled once more, and with a gay call for Ruth's notice hurried
to meet her in the middle of the way.

III

ARTHUR AND LEONARD

Godfrey passed over to the General, who had walked down to his gate on
his way to the great elm. Out from behind the elm came the other two
men, Arthur leading and talking briskly:--

"The sooner the better, Leonard. Now while my work is new and taking
shape--Ah! here's Mrs. Morris."

Both men were handsome. Arthur, not much older than Ruth, was of medium
height, slender, restless, dark, and eager of glance and speech. Leonard
was nearer the age of Godfrey; fairer than Arthur, of a quieter eye,
tall, broad-shouldered, powerful