seem to mind him as he stood in the open door.
But the rooster, in his oriental iridescent plumage, jumped upon a
fence-post and crowed defiantly, in warning that this was his preserve.
They seemed like the same hens, yet Philip knew they were all strangers;
all the hens and flaunting roosters he knew had long ago gone to
Thanksgiving. The hen is, or should be, an annual. It is never made a
pet. It forms no attachments. Man is no better acquainted with the hen,
as a being, than he was when the first chicken was hatched. Its business
is to live a brief chicken life, lay, and be eaten. And this reminded
Philip that his real occupation was hunting hens' eggs. And this he did,
in the mows, in the stalls, under the floor-planks, in every hidden nook.
The hen's instinct is to be orderly, and have a secluded nest of her own,
and bring up a family. But in such a communistic body it is a wise hen
who knows her own chicken. Nobody denies to the hen maternal instincts or
domestic proclivities, but what an ill example is a hen community!

And then Philip climbed up the hill, through the old grass-plot and the
orchard, to the rocks and the forest edge, and the great view.
It had more meaning to him than when he was a boy, and it was more
beautiful. In a certain peaceful charm, he had seen nothing anywhere in
the world like it. Partly this was because his boyish impressions,
the first fresh impressions of the visible world, came back to him; but
surely it was very beautiful. More experienced travelers than Philip
felt its unique charm.

When he descended, Alice was waiting to breakfast with him. Mrs.
Maitland declared, with an approving smile on her placid, aging face,
that he was the same good-for-nothing boy. But Alice said, as she sat
down to the little table with Philip, "It is different, mother, with us
city folks." They were in the middle room, and the windows opened to the
west upon the river-meadows and the wooded hills beyond, and through one
a tall rose-bush was trying to thrust its fragrant bloom.

What a dainty breakfast! Alice flushed with pleasure. It was so good of
him to come to them. Had he slept well? Did it seem like home at all?
Philip's face showed that it was home without the need of saying so.
Such coffee-yes, a real aroma of the berry! Just a little more, would he
have? And as Alice raised the silver pitcher, there was a deep dimple in
her sweet cheek. How happy she was! And then the butter, so fresh and
co