Margaret and Halloran were married in the late spring. For their honeymoon they went back to the mountains at the time when the apple buds were bursting into billows of pink and white in hillside orchards. The song-sparrows and robins sang for them as they drove up from the village; the brook, boisterous with a burden drained from higher slopes where the snow still lingered under northern ledges, brawled almost at the carriage wheels; millions of violets dotted the roadside, and white strawberry blossoms and the first daisies, and forget-me-nots that had escaped from some old-time garden. The smell of spring was in the air, the intoxicating sense of youth and health and happiness. And as they rolled comfortably along behind the jogging white horses they could only look at each other and draw in deep breaths of the fragrant, buoyant air, and be glad.

Their first climb was up to the blackberry patch, under the maples. As they sat there on a well-remembered log, and looked out on the green wonder of the opposite slope, where the cloud-shadows were mounting as on that day of the autumn before, Margaret slipped her hand into Halloran's. “Listen,” she said.

Far back in the hollow of the mountain a winter wren was caroling, welcoming them back to the highlands with all the melody in his little throat. His neighbours took it up, and piped their shrillest; and all along the slope chirped the dainty babel of welcome.

“John,” she murmured.

“Yes, Margaret.”

“They can't send you any telegrams now?”

“It wouldn't do them any good if they did. I've ordered the station agent to hold all messages until I call for them, and I'm not going to call.”

She smiled; and again they were silent, listening to the merry strains behind them and to the far-off sounds from the valley, and watching the men at work in the fields below.

We have followed them thus far, but now, in telling an odd incident of this little journey, we take leave. One evening, at supper, some active bodies at the house busied themselves in getting up an expedition to the village. There was to be a “show” in the village hall. These things were said to be great fun, and Margaret and Halloran were in the first wagon that went down. A band of broken-down actors, the latest coon songs, an elaborate silver table set to be raffled off—a number being given with each and every ticket sold to the performance—these were the attractions. It was hinted that the same silver set would probably figure again in other years; for the raffle included all the towns along the railroad, and the winning ticket seemed always to be held in some other town. But the natives of the mountains were always glad to be swindled, and silverware was not to be resisted. Small farmers, who build shingled bay windows and buy cabinet organs before the rear of the house is boarded up, fall an easy prey to these allurements. So the hall was crowded, and the party found some difficulty in getting seats.

At length the cracked piano began to jingle.. The janitor lighted the lamps that served for footlights, and a voice, somewhere behind the curtain, was heard singing.

The giggling, chatting audience was hushed. The kerosene lamps smoked and flickered unheeded. A village aristocrat, daughter of the general storekeeper, with her gum-chewing escort, sat next to Halloran, rapt with expectancy. The voice swelled out louder and louder, as it approached the refrain. Margaret, finding the audience more odorous and less picturesque than she had looked for, turned to suggest an early departure, and was surprised to see her husband leaning forward, his hands on the back of the chair in front, his eyes fixed on the stage. There were signs that the curtain was to be drawn; and as the voice swung into the refrain, “For Golden-haired Mary, dee-doodle-dee-fairy, dee-iddle-dee airy, ta-raddle-my-own,” the singer was disclosed, a long-legged black-face comedian, in a gorgeous, if shabby, cake-walk costume. Halloran muttered, “Well, I'm blest!”

“What is it, John?” she whispered.

“Don't you know him? It's Apples!”

Sure enough, Le Duc, after a vain chase for the gold that glitters above the corn-pit on the Board of Trade, had returned to the path that leads to Shakespeare. The Bard was not quite within hail, to be sure, for Apples had lost his place in the line and must begin farther back than ever, but the road was still there. As they watched and listened, a woman, also in black-face, joined the comedian; and they recognized his wife.

The next morning Halloran walked to the village after breakfast for a talk with Le Duc, but the “company” had left by an early train. “I don't know,” he said to Margaret when they talked it over later in the day; “there's not much use being sorry for them. They'd have landed on this level sooner or later anyhow—nothing could stop them. And he can't do anything like the harm with his silver-set swindle that he could have if Bigelow had succeeded in putting his deal through.”

“I'm a little sorry for Lizzie, though. I used to think she might amount to something. You see, John, I can't quite forget that if it hadn't been for her and George we might not—maybe we wouldn't have come to know each other so well.” They were walking in the orchard. As she spoke she picked a cluster of apple blossoms and turned to pin them on his coat.

“Perhaps not,” he said, looking down at her and smiling, “but I don't know. Maybe we'd have landed on this level, too, no matter how we started. I like to think so.”

She looked up with one of the quick, shy glances he was learning to expect; and as quickly looking down again, and lowering her head over the blossoms, she murmured, “So do I.”

THE END