he house of Adam Craig, drifting pleasantly he knew and

rld, sweeping her, eager and unresistant, into youth and life and laughter. He came from an immensity of romantic exper

ere cruel: a passionate shrinking from her uncle, a fear for the brother who had hotly rebelled at the meager life around him, a lonelines

ous painter with a personality as vivid as his face. And yet he chose to linger at her uncle's farm. The color, the gayety, the sparkle, he seemed miraculously to infuse into existence, left he

h she ran down the lane each morning and peered into the letter box at the end for word of Donald, her disappointment now had nothing in it of terror. Dona

he spirit that had led her to make the garret a sort of shrine to be swept and dusted, to be kept apart and precious. There was another force, subtle and exacting: the girl's burgeoning womanhood. Wistful for homage, she craved his gallant tenderness and want

e remembered the hours by the river when Kenny wove for her high, peaked hats of rushes such as he claimed the Irish fairies wore, and told her tales of Ireland with a trick of eloquence that made her laugh and made her

e was Kenny's Gray Man of the Twiligh

wit and humor was an energizing boon. There was Hannah and Hetty; and Hughie

ty he knew he would have fretted. There was one singular, inexplicable thing about work. If there was work at hand, one could always find something else to do, attractive and absorbing. If there wasn't

g while Hetty's apple-cheeks bloomed redder, an exquisite folk tune of a pretty girl who milked a cow in Ireland. Later in the summer he even helped Hughie rake th

ty," said Hannah,

farm like this on shares is like goin' to a picnic behind old Nellie and startin' late. You jus

ah s

number of unforeseen reasons. When he churned the butter never came. The roan cow disliked music

st always remember that it had not been his fault. The rock had merely scraped the punt while he was listening with politeness to why the old man had "doubled up" his charge and had a church on either side of the river. And if Mr. Abbott had not risen in gentle alarm and begun to teeter around, Kenny in an i

l things here in the sylvan heart of solitude in the terms of romance and mystery, he was like the chivalrous warrior of old who found his true happiness in gallantly serving a beautiful maid. Joan was surely such a type as chivalry conceived. She filled his Celtic ideal and aroused all his gladness as a woman s

put an end to his quest and doomed him to linger here in the home of a miser, waiting, waiting, yes, waiting in impatience for word of his son. Well, perhaps

nderer tones of his voice, that he kept for Joan alone, songs that came softly to h

rden where the heliotrope grew; they were sparks

e song he sa

arm porch was finding the subtleties of color for her in the d

butus, dear?" he

quently "Hannah, dear!" and "Hetty, dear

oan, "do you c

e like one," h

t was th

ust not step so far ahead again. She looked a little frightened. Kenny i

oor lad, bit a chunk out of a mountain and not liking the morse

lau

the Rock of Cashel. He's been bitin' again over there, I take it. To-morrow you and I

y," said Joan, "the

the horn came over t

sual curse

he baffling thing about her that kept him piqued. She was always shy and elusive. Of convention she knew nothing at all; yet like the shrine in the garret she kept herself apart and precious. Always she seemed fluttering just ahea

lens remote it seemed from everything but the call of that infernal horn, yielded to the enthusiasm of his maddest moods, romped with him

ly was the one mood in which Joan did not seem to flutter just ahead. Always then she followed, gentle, compassionate and shyly

ot fathom. With Hughie and Hannah it was different. They loved Joan and trusted him. That trust, he resolved, should not be futile. He could justify it and he would. Joan, of course, was foredoomed to know the delirium of th

s apt to happen, for he was handicapped by an earlier start. Yes, he would linger. And he would be scrupulous and honorable and kind. Joan was young and a woman. She would nurse the sh

drifting leaves. It bothered him that the thought of Hannah and Hughie had driven him to

as Joan's voi

the future. The thing to do always was to live in the present a

, Jo

e. See, he's climbed up from the va

misty robes came the