uite away from them all, will you?"

"No; I'll build a nest over there in the big woods, and you can go back and
forth between my--my brood and Mr. G. Bird's," promised Adam with Pan's
fluty laugh.

"Branded, and I don't even know the initials on the brand," I said to
myself as I stood on the front steps under a honeysuckle vine that was
twining with a musky rose in a death struggle as to the strength of their
perfumes, and watched Adam go padding swiftly and silently away from me
down the long avenue of elms. A mocking-bird in a tree over by the fence
was pouring out showers of notes of liquid love, and ringdoves cooed and
softly nestled up under the eaves above my head. "I'm a woman and I've
found my mate. I am going to be part of it all," I said to myself as I sank
to the step and began to brood with the night around me.

I think that God gives it sometimes to a woman to have a night in which she
sits alone brooding her love until somehow it waxes so strong and brave
that it can face death by starvation and cold and betrayal and still live
triumphant. It is so that He recreates His children.

"Now, of course, Ann, everybody admires your pluck about this retiring from
the world and becoming a model rustic, but it does seem to me that you
might admit that some of your old friends have at least a part of the
attraction for you that is vested in, well, say old Mrs. Red Ally, for
instance. Will you or will you not come in to dine and to wine and to dance
at the country club with Matthew Saturday evening?" Bess delivered herself
of the text of her mission to me before she descended from her cherry
roadster in front of the barn.

"Oh, Bess, just come and see old Mrs. Red and never, never ask me to feel
about a mere friend of my childhood like I do about her," I answered with
welcome and excitement both in my voice. "Do come quick and look!"

"Coming," answered Bess, with delightful enthusiasm and no wounded pride,
as she left the car in one motion and swept into the barn with me in about
two more.

"Now, just look at that," I said as I opened the top of the long box that
is called a brooder and is supposed to supplement the functions of the
metal incubator mother in the destiny of chicken young. It has feed and
water-pans in it, straw upon the floor as a carpet, and behind flannel
portieres is supposed to burn a lamp with mother ardor sufficient to keep
the small fledglings warm, though orphaned. Did the week-old babi