For once the morning road was disturbed. Its happiness was feigned. The sun lay just as warm upon the field as the week before. The air was quite as soft, as scented, as full of the freshness of spring. The river was fully as beautiful as of old as it flowed lazily by with glorious sunlit waters. Yet, withal, happiness seemed to have fled.

If you had been upon a journey at this time on the way west from Oldmeadow, known as the river road, you would have met two travelers afoot following a horse and van. As you approached them it would easily be noticed that they were playfully chattering in an apparent abundance of spirits. Their greeting would have been one of marked good cheer. You would have felt singled out for their especial attention. Then, after passing, should you have turned to look at the strange, grotesque figure of the man whom you had already marked as an extraordinary person, and at the genuine easy grace and beauty of the girl, whose startled, wistful face you had seen a moment before, there would have been awakened within you a sense of pity. A picturesque group you would have said, whose air of frivolity seemed but a masque beneath the veneer of which lay sorrow. You would have been right.... The road which one stumbles and falters along in the heart is not always so smooth and alluring as the road at one's feet. For once the great highway had lost its charm.... So, as you passed from hearing, there was a distinct note of sadness in the merry-tuned song which they joined their voices in singing.

ran the song with the plaintive strain which seemed out of place in so jocund an air:

As their voices dwelt upon the words, it appeared to be a bidding good-by to an old, familiar theme, well loved.

As you rode that day, my friend, had you indeed been passing upon the highway, you, too, would have felt the spirit of grief. It would have seemed as if a cloud had for the moment obscured the sun.

They were within a half of a mile of Oldmeadow when Jean FranÇois called a halt to his happy caravan. They drew up beneath a tree by the roadside. Whether Nance realized it or not, the pedler knew it to be the end. A week ago he would have laughed in derision had he been told that he would have taken anything so seriously, so painfully, as he now was, after this joyous lark, at the parting of the ways.

"Sit down, Nance."

She obeyed, without protest or interest, as an indifferent child.

"Nance, my little sister," said he, "we'll soon be home."

"Will we?" She could not see any use in lingering, now that the joy was all gone. She wished to hurry through the agony of the end and the sooner reach the adjustment which she thought would restore the old-time happiness. Why should he care to stop and tell her such painfully self-evident facts.... The sympathy which Jean FranÇois expected was not forthcoming.

"I've been thinking a great deal to-day," said he, "about the parson we had at camp the other evening."

"I thought that was all settled last night," she exclaimed in surprise.

"No, it is not, Nance. At least not yet.... He was right, I tell you. For him, in his work and his home lay his task and his happiness. There was the better part. He understood the road. His love of it made you his sister, me his brother. He will always be kinder, gentler, and purer of soul, Nance, because he knows the wander-longing. Yet it would be wrong for him to follow the patter an.... I see it all. He is right. And O, the tenderness in his eyes."

"Yes," came disinterestedly from Nance, "he's right."

"It's best!" exclaimed Jean FranÇois, a trifle hurt at no more evidence of understanding.

"For him," she repeated firmly.

"For anybody," insisted the pedler.

"For who?" she asked in scorn.

"For me!" cried Jean FranÇois. "For me."

She looked at him for fully a minute with surprise upon her face. Then, with a curl upon her lips, yet a kinder note in her voice to soften the harshness of her words, she slowly, deliberately, replied:

"My good, good friend, Jean FranÇois, you lie!"

"Nance!"

"Jean FranÇois!"

"Very well, then," said he, with a shrug, "have your way.... As for you, however, my dear, the road can be no more for you."

He had been dreading saying this to her. It had been upon his lips a dozen times in the last few days, yet his uncertainty as to the wiseness of talking to her at all upon such a subject had kept his mouth closed.... He now continued:

"Like your tall, dark brother of the gentle eyes, your task lies in the better way."

"Dear old Jean FranÇois," came the reply, without resentment and with perfect understanding, "there you go preaching already! What do you know about my task? After all, dear-a, it is where my heart leads. If I should choose the merry pack, what of it? I think I should not mind turning back right now, would you? Nobody's seen us! No one knows! Come, my comrade, and away while the call is loud! What do you say? I am ready!"

"You impulsive jade," said he, evidently pleased, "would you banish me from Oldmeadow?"

"Not in a thousand years, you old goose," she replied with tenderness.

"But you will—you surely will, if you insist on sharing Columbine and Rogue with me. I'll have to discover another green field, another pair of children—"

"And I, Monsieur," she said with gaiety, "I shall again drop from the heavens into your top-o'-the-morning."

"Then I shall go back to my France and the sunny fields of Picardy."

"I love France," was her reply.

"Look!" exclaimed Jean FranÇois, pointing up the road.

A doctor's gig was approaching, driven at a rapid gait. Nance's heart almost stopped beating. There could be no doubt as to whom the vehicle belonged. It came nearer and the portly figure of old Doctor Felix Longstreet became evident, and, by his side, young Dr. Charles Reubelt King. Both were vainly trying to appear dignified and severe. Jean FranÇois was in the mood that could, with equal ease, pray, cry, or fight.

"With the help of the bon Dieu to fight like hell," he murmured gleefully, as he realized his pugnacious tendencies.

"Good-by for now, dear Jean FranÇois," whispered Nance; "but another day ... another day.... O, God!"

The gig drew up and stopped with a jerk. Dr. King climbed out; the old doctor shouted in a voice which tried to be severe, yet was tempered with gladness, and trembled with relieved anxiety:

"Get right in here this minute, Nance Gwyn! Your Aunt Barbara has been intensely worried about you. As for me, you know I didn't care a tinker's damn. Charles, there, is a fool!"

Nance was driven rapidly into Oldmeadow, leaving Charles and Jean FranÇois to come leisurely with the caravan.