prison drew swiftly to an end.

"Monday week," she said. "Next Monday." "Day after to-morrow."
"To-morrow." "O Father of mine in heaven; O saints; O Mother
heart--to-day!"

III

Old Martha wondered if the Poor Boy would have a smile for her. She
imagined that he would look sick and broken, and that if he smiled at
all it would be the bitter smile of the wronged. She imagined that he
would wear ready-made clothes supplied by the prison authorities; and
that he would no longer walk erect, upon swift feet, but bowed over,
with dragging steps.

When he came at last what profoundly shocked her was none of this; but
that to the superficial eye he had not changed at all. His hair,
perhaps, was a little shorter than she remembered; his face was not
exactly pale; it was more as if he had sat up too late, and was having
an off day. As for the smile for which she hoped and longed, it began
when he saw her running toward him, very swiftly for a heavy old woman,
and it ended on her cheek.

"My old dear!" he said.

He took her hand and swung it as children do, and walked beside her into
the cottage.

The spickness and spanness of it smote him between the eyes; the
imagination and the taste which had changed it from a hunting-lodge into
a gentleman's house, and the tact which had done away with the
photographs of friends, and all things that could remind him of old
days. He passed the whole house in review from top to bottom, and
gratitude to the old servant grew very warm in the tired heart.

They stepped out from the living-room to the edge of the cliff and
looked down the great valley.

"There was no time," said Martha, tremulous with joy, for she had been
much praised, "to put the landscape to rights."

The Poor Boy looked up into the blue vault of heaven.

"Stone walls," he said, "and _that_, have been my landscape."

"But now," she said, "any day you like you can view the world from here
to the North Pole."

He smiled.

"That way's south, Martha," he said, "but it will do. We own all the way
to the ocean that way; but north only to the lake where the river
rises. But even that's a day's travel. Oh, there's room enough even for
me, and there's a great deal too much for you, you poor old dear. But
have you made friends in the village? You must have them up to see you,
days when I'm off somewhere or other. And you must have a helper, I see
that. Yes, you must. If necessary, I'll face him, or her. I won't