ed the old General, "don't you see you're carrying
Arthur?"

"No, I sha'n't do that," dryly responded the son; but Ruth saw a change
on his brow as on that of a guide who fears he has missed the path.

The four young friends spent many delightful evenings together in the
Winslow house, with Mrs. Morris and the General on one side at cribbage.
Ruth had frequent happy laughs, observing Isabel's gift for making
Leonard talk. It gave her a new joy in both of them to have the lovely
hostess draw him out, out, out, on every matter in the wide arena to
which he so vitally belonged; eliciting a flow of speech so animated
that only afterward did one notice how dumb as any tree on Bylow Hill
he had been in regard to himself.

"They are bow and violin," said Arthur to Ruth, with his dark, unsmiling
face so free from resentment that she gratefully wondered at him, and
was presently ashamed to find herself asking her own mind if he was
growing too subtle for her.

On these occasions Isabel was wont to court Ruth's counsel concerning
her wifely part in Arthur's work, thus often getting Leonard's as well.
Sometimes she impeached his masculine view of things, in her old
skirmishing way. Then she would turn rose-color once more and mirthfully
sigh, while Ruth laughed and wished for Godfrey, and Mrs. Morris
breathed soft ho-ho's from the cribbage board.

So came the Thanksgiving season, with strong, black ice on the mill
pond, where the four skated hand in hand. Then the piling snows stopped
the skating with a white Christmas, the old year sank to rest, the new
rose up, and Bylow Hill, under its bare elms and with the pine-crested
ridge at its back, sat in the cold sunshine like a white sea bird with
its head in its down. And when the nights were frigid and clear its
ruddy lights of lamp and hearth seemed to answer the downward gaze of
the stars in silent gratitude for conditions of happiness strangely
perfect for this imperfect world, and the town marvelled at the young
rector's grasp of his subject when his text was, "The heart knoweth his
own bitterness."

VII

THE HOUR STRIKES

But on a day in the very last of winter, when every one was in the thick
of all the year's tasks and cares, there came to Leonard this letter:--

LEONARD BYINGTON, ESQUIRE:

SIR,--I find myself compelled to ask that you consider your
acquaintanceship with my wife at an end. Doubtless this request will
give you more relief than su