the front yard seemed to have taken back their rash buds,
and to have grown as gray as winter again. The light was failing fast
out of doors; there was a lamp lighted in the kitchen, and a figure
kept passing between it and the window.

Israel Haydon lingered as long as he could over his barn-work. Somehow
it seemed lonely in the barn, and as long as he could see or feel his
way about, he kept himself busy over the old horse and cow, accepting
their inexpressive companionship, and serving their suppers with
unusual generosity. His sensations, even of grief, were not very
distinct to him; there was only a vague sense of discomfort, of being
disturbed in his quiet course. He had said to many of his friends that
afternoon, "I do' know why 't is, but I can't realize nothing about
it," and spoken sincerely; but his face was marked with deep lines; he
was suffering deeply from the great loss that had befallen him.

His wife had been a woman of uncommon social gifts and facilities, and
he had missed her leadership in the great occasion that was just over.
Everybody had come to him for directions, and expected from him the
knowledge of practical arrangements that she had always shown in the
forty years of their married life. He had forgotten already that it
was a worn-out and suffering woman who had died; the remembrance of
long weeks of illness faded from his mind. It appeared to him as if,
in her most active and busy aspect, she had suddenly vanished out of
the emergencies and close dependence of their every-day lives.

Mr. Haydon crossed the yard slowly, after he had locked the barn door
and tried the fastening, and then gone back to try it again. He was
glad to see the cheerfulness of the lighted kitchen, and to remember
that his own sister and the sister of his wife were there in charge
and ready to companion him. He could not help a feeling of distress at
the thought of entering his lonely home; suddenly the fact of their
being there made everything seem worse. Another man might have
loitered on the step until he was chilly and miserable, but poor
Mr. Haydon only dropped his hand for a moment by his side, and looked
away down the lane; then, with bent head, he lifted the latch as he
always did, and went in. It seemed as if he consciously shouldered the
burden of his loneliness in that dreary moment, and never could stand
upright again.

The season of his solitary life began with more cheer than could have
been expecte