Winter was loitering through its last calendar month, although it usually fastens its iron claws upon the first days of spring also, and is dislodged only after a gusty struggle. Brooke turned from the cross-way into the river road, upon the daily walk she forced herself to take in all but impossible weather, according to her compact with Dr. Russell. Of walking in general she would have declared that she was passionately fond, but navigating the uneven roads, scarred by the storms of a winter of unusual severity, did not come under the usual term.

After crossing an especially slippery bit she paused to rest for a moment, supporting herself by the rough fence of split rails that made a barrier between the road edge and the rocky bank which fell away, at first sharply, and then more gradually toward the Moosatuk. As she stood there, looking up and down, the saying came forcibly to her, “Whosoever loves the land in February, loves for life.” Did she love nature, or was she only baffled and cowed by its omnipotence and bent to it by the force of necessity? This day she herself could not have judged.

All the sources of inspiration seemed closed. Silence reigned in the River Kingdom; the voice of the ruler was stilled. Great, sooty crows, lean and ravenous, patrolled the river meadows, croaking ominously as they quarried a meal from the frozen wild apples, or rent asunder the few blighted ears that remained in the corn-fields.

The day before had been one of sleet and wind; no human being had even passed the homestead—merely a brindled cat of the half-wild breed, and he had scuttled along on the other side of the road under cover of the wall. Robert Stead was ill of a sudden cold, Adam had reported when he returned from his daily lessons, consequently JosÉ, the Mexican half-breed factotum, had not left the shack even to fetch the mail.

Thinner than when she had come to Gilead a month before, Brooke’s supple figure had the spring and elasticity of physical health in spite of its lack of roundness, for the long nights of sleep and the simplicity of the daily routine offset the strain of unaccustomed toil. Neither was she lonely in the common meaning of the word, which always implies a great degree of leisure; also she was young, and Bulwer was right—“The young are never lonely.” Then there were the books that the silent man brought her—poetry, story, and all the lore of her fellows, the birds and beasts of the field, that heretofore had been to her unknown creatures of mystery; while Adam (she had never called him the Cub since the night of his return) and she had many new sympathies, and when the boy, inspired by the talk of his teacher, rushed in to tell her of the track that he thought perhaps might belong to a fox or a mink, or with the surmise that a strange bird was feeding by the granary, she was as eager as he to see and to prove it.

The grisly mood that had seized upon her this 12th day of February was born of the sudden stepping into the foreground of the future with all its necessities, which, until that moment, had been blended optimistically with the middle distance at the very least.

In two days more Mrs. Peck’s period of “accommodation” would be over; the 1st of March Larsen would go to Gordon, and the spring work must be begun if they would eat of the harvest. Toil as she and the boy might with their hands, there must either be more money, or cattle and land must be parted with, the homestead depleted, and the family start on that dreadful shrivelling process of acquiring the habit of doing with less and less, instead of pushing forward to fresh effort, which enervates the mental, and finally the moral, nature, and has made some parts of New England a graveyard of abandoned farms. For the thousandth time Brooke thought of her mother’s little dower,—this, if it had not vanished, would have more than doubled the monthly yield,—then she put the thought from her as she had done before, but this time less forcibly.

With all around ice, snow, dusky tree trunks, and rock of granite, she felt all the sensations that would belong to a wild animal at bay. Indeed, she might have lingered on there to her hurt, had not Tatters barked and pulled her by the skirt.

“Yes, I will come now, old man! I’m sorry I stood so long; I know your paws must be chilled!” she exclaimed ruefully. “You want to go to Gilead village instead of to the foot of Windy Hill to see old Mrs. Fenton? Well, so be it, we shall see more people on that road; besides, I think that both you and I need something from the store,—post-stamps, and lavender oil, for I’m going to try my hand at painting, you see, Tatters, if it’s only Easter bonbonniÈres. Cookies? Yes, sugar cookies, and you can get two stale ones for this penny. Watch out, Tatters,” and Brooke, throwing off her dismal mood with an effort, held the copper coin before his nose as she spoke, and the dog, comprehending either tone, word, gesture, or all three, preceded his mistress joyfully in an uneven but steady trot, that ate up the road and caused her fairly to break step in order not to be left behind.

The cookies were bought and eaten, mistress and dog resting awhile at the little shop that sold simple drugs, etc., and eleven o’clock saw Brooke climbing the upper road toward home. She had gone but half of the way when, missing Tatters, she turned about to look for him. Whistling and waiting a moment, she saw his head appearing slowly over the last upward roll in the road, and noticed that he was limping painfully. She hurried back to where he had paused, as soon as he knew that he was in no danger of being deserted, and he began to lick one of his front paws, which had been cut by a sharp, jagged piece of ice, and which was bleeding profusely. Kneeling in the road beside him, Brooke moistened her handkerchief by the slow process of holding snow in her hands until it melted, and, after cleansing the cut as well as she could, wound the handkerchief tight around it.

“You can’t hobble a mile in this plight, neither can I carry you. Will you lie up there on that dry moss in the spot where the snow has melted, and wait until I can send Adam for you?” and Brooke took a few steps uphill to illustrate what she meant while waiting for his answer.

No, Tatters emphatically declined to wait, for as soon as she had moved a step he began to hobble on three legs, while at the same time the leaden sky shed a few big snowflakes, as if to show casually what might be expected at any time before night. So his mistress halted and began to look about as if for a possible suggestion.

Presently the head of a meek, ginger-colored horse began to rise above a steep “thank-you-ma’am.” A stout body and four legs followed, next a covered wagon, such as milk pedlers use, with a glass front, through which a man’s face looked out. The sight was such a relief to Brooke that she made no pretence of concealing the fact, but waited until the team came alongside, when she read the legend “Mrs. Banks’ Homemade Pies,” printed in elaborately shaded letters on the side of the canopy.

The horse stopped of its own accord on the small plateau, the driver dropped his window and looked out, smiling cheerfully. It was anything but a handsome face,—that of a man who was probably sixty but might be less, weathered and somewhat sharp; small gray eyes, but with a merry twinkle, peered from under shaggy, sandy eyebrows, that matched a half-starved mustache. The hair of the head was gray, and from it at right angles two very sizable ears stuck out with somewhat startling effect. Yet, in spite of these details, the whole was a face to inspire trust.

“Miss Keith West’s dog, and in trouble, I take it,” was his opening remark. “I’m goin’ straight past her house, and I’ll fetch him up if you like and relieve your mind, as you seem partial to animals.”

“Could you take me, too?” asked Brooke, returning his smile, “that is, if I shall not make your load too heavy, for though Tatters seems to know you” (Tatters had given the coolest sort of tail wag at the sound of the man’s voice), “I’m afraid he will not go without me.”

“So you are travelling uphill too—climb right in, though I reckon you’ll hev to set on this box here. Do you happen to be one uv Miss Keith’s folks that owns the farm and wuz comin’ to live there when she goes to Boston? Though, as I says to my wife (she’s Mrs. Banks, Homemade Pies, and I’m Mr. Banks that peddles ’em, besides raisin’ and pickin’ the berries and apples and pumpkins fer their innards, along with a considerable lot of garden sass), I says, ‘Keith’ll never make up her mind to go; the city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when onct you’re used to plenty o’ room to move and free empty air.’ What air there is in big cities is so chuck full o’ noise and smell and one thing and another, you wouldn’t know it. Why, it’s worse than the Methody church down in the holler, when they had a revival meetin’ on a summer night, and felt called to close the winders on account of gnats.

“Yes, I lived in N’ York six months,—it’ll be nigh five years ago. You see, the farm didn’t pay as it uster when I raised six children on it and we was all satisfied. Everything doin’ got to be more wholesale and knocked out us small fry. Next, for a spell, I took to the railroad; got a job through one of the big bugs down ter Stonebridge, and after a time got ter be conductor on the through express freight, sleepin’ home every other night. Well, it gave me a chance to see life, I’m glad to say, for which I’d allus hankered, but it was a nervous job, and kep’ me too far above the ground, which was my born station.

“Then the boys coaxed ma and me to go to N’ York, she to keep a flat for ’em,—I suppose maybe you’ve seen one o’ them contrary sort of outfits, a floor divided up small like a parlour box car for racing stock, well enough looking till you close the doors, then everybody shook up together until you’re sick o’ the sight and smell o’ your very own. All of God’s sunlight you get is what’s dribbled in down a flue, like the chute of a feed bin, and not a scrap o’ grass to bleach clothes on, only to hang ’em out in a little narrer place to sweat on a line like bacon in a smoke-house. Mother withered so that summer I was afeared she’d let go the tree before autumn, like a windfall apple; and as for the ‘genteel work for my old age’ the boys had got me—genteel be damned! I beg your pardon, Miss—?”

“Lawton.”

“Oh, then you are one o’ Miss Keith’s kin. But that word’s one that remains of my experience on the through freight that somehow’s too handy, though wrong, to be quite give up. What was that job with short hours that was to keep me clean-handed and from bendin’ my back? To wear a plum-red coat, like a circus monkey, and stand in a bank on a stone floor, that made me cold as an ice pond when you hole fer frost fish, without the pleasure o’ catchin’, and openin’ and shuttin’ the door all day fer a lot of fool Jays and Jenny Wrens, well able to do it fer themselves, and me reachin’ toward sixty! Genteel nothin’! My spirit broke before noon of the second day, and goin’ to that flat I just picked up mother and we lit out fer home, which the summer folks that rented it had left, we leavin’ a note behind like young folks ’lopin’. Then, when we’d set and considered a spell, the Lord pointed out pies, like a sky-fallen revelation; the boys caved in and gave us a horse; now life’s jest a hummin’ along brisk as a swarm o’ bees! And once more the Lord’s borne it in upon us two old folks, after that discipline of city life, that if we was goin’ to scratch a livin’ nowadays we’d got to give folks jest what they want, and make it good, and no skimpin’. Folks in Gilead County eats pies, and they need ’em good!”

“Cousin Keith has been away a month now,” said Brooke, when Mr. Banks paused for breath, “and she writes that she is enjoying herself immensely, so I do not think that she is likely to return.”

“She’s actoolly gone, then? That knocks me out,” said the pieman, with a disappointed droop in his voice. “I didn’t know that, fer I’ve been goin’ the short way and haven’t been over this upper road since New Year, the goin’s been so bad. I allus reckoned on puttin’ up at the West farm for the noon hour to bait Maria here and get my coffee het up; but maybe your ma won’t fancy shelterin’ strangers, for I think Miss Keith said the farm came through the female line and was again rightly vested in a female.”

“I own the farm, and I shall be very glad to have you rest and feed your horse there and take your dinner with us to-day,” said Brooke, taking a mischievous satisfaction in the effect of her words on the funny little man.

“You! a slip of a girl like you own the snuggest small place in the county, and best kep’ up!” he ejaculated, his jaw dropping with reflex wonder; “but maybe you’re married?”

“No.”

“Keepin’ company, then?”

“No”—this time Brooke had great difficulty in controlling either voice or countenance.

“Left a beau in town or in foreign parts somewhere, then?” he persisted, almost anxiously.

“No”—but this time the word had a different sound.

“Not even got picked out yet? well, I want ter know! I thank you kindly for yer invitation, and I’ll be pleased to go in. Hev you got a ma and pa, or only a hired man?”

With a person of his persistence social topics might have now become embarrassing, but chance turned the subject at the right moment, taking the shape of a covey of quail, huddled under some cedar bushes by the roadside. The pieman spied them first, and at his sharp pull patient Maria stopped, although the spot was not very suitable for such a halt. Brooke expected to see the flock either rise in a body or disappear in the under-brush, but they did neither, only huddling still closer, while, inexperienced as she was, she noticed that even their ruffled feathers illy hid the leanness of their bodies.

“The game along this route has suffered this winter, and it’s missed me,” he whispered, preparing to raise the curtain on the opposite side of the wagon to the birds.

“Raise up a minute, please, so’s I can git some buckwheat out uv that box, and keep a hand on Tatters, else, lame as he is, he’ll out and flush the covey.”

Brooke did as she was told, while the pieman scooped up a handful of unhulled buckwheat from the box, and, letting himself down quietly from the wagon, scattered it among the bayberry bushes, not too near to the flock, yet in plain sight of it. Returning, he re-fastened the curtain and started the horse again before he said a word in answer to the interrogation of Brooke’s face. Reaching the next level, a dozen rods on, he half turned the wagon in order to give a clear view down the hill; the quail had crossed the road and were feeding eagerly upon the buckwheat, like a brood of chickens.

“Puzzled, ain’t yer, ter see a Yankee scatterin’ good fodder by the way?” said the pieman, highly gratified. “Well, it may seem uncommon, but the truth is these five years I’ve been peddlin’ and coverin’ a wild tract of country twict every week in cold and heat, rain and sun, I’ve come to think that man ain’t the only created thing that the Lord has cause to be proud uv or care fer. I’ve got kinder close to the wild folks along the route, which after all is but accordin’ to Scripture, that bids us ‘Consider the way the lilies grow and look to the fowls of the air,’ and says the Lord himself ain’t too busy to indulge in counting sparrers—(if he’d only worded it song or chippin’ sparrers it would be more comfortin’, though he couldn’t hev meant English ones, cause that island wasn’t discovered in those days, and so is of no account in Scripture, which must rile their pride).

“I allus did like birds, even way back when I followed the plough, and of course I knew some of them apart,—robins and swallers and phoebes and hawks and all the gamies,—and I jest plumb knew that when crows sat on the fence a-quaverin’, it was interestin’ and worthy conversation, most like, if we could only sense it. But it was after that hell-fire summer in the city that I got the call to treat ’em like my brothers and help ’em out with food in winter like we would neighbouring house folks.

“Soon as it come hot weather there, that time in N’ York, I couldn’t set closed into meetin’ of Sundays (though mother, she sit it out for sake of principle), and I don’t believe the Lord does, either,—stands to reason he’s got too much sense, not havin’ to set an example,—so I uster wander out through that long narrer park o’ theirn, and when onct I cut clean through westward, I strayed into that big museum where they keep the natural relics, and there I come face to face with all the birds that ever wuz together since Eve’s time. When I’d observed all the cockatoos and parrerkeets and such like, I went on a bit further, ’n if there warn’t a partridge a struttin’ on the leaves with his tail all fanned out, and beyond it the brown eggs was nested in a ground holler. I passed that by and next I seen a catbird in a syringa bush and a robin on an apple branch and a highholder on a stump, that set my heart a-bumpin’ so I was all of a tremble and sidled off into a small room to set down. When I looked up next, what was there in a case marked something about ‘seasonable birds’ but a big medder lark. His breast was jest as fresh and yaller as when he sings from a tree-top to yer in plantin’ time, or turns and teeters on a fence to keep you from seein’ him too plain, and it seemed as if I heard him calling fer spring. That broke me all up, and I jest leaned over and cried it out into the white Sunday handkerchief mother got me, ’cause my red ones jarred the boys.

“I think it was the sight of those birds gave me grit to break loose fer home. That next winter a woman we sold eggs to over in Gordon, seein’ my fancy, gave me a book all about their ways and needs, and so ever since I’ve been with ’em in heart. My, but ain’t they company along the lonely road bits and in early mornings when I’m comin’ home! (I go up Tuesdays and Fridays to sleep at Sairy Ann’s, my wife’s sister’s house near Gordon, startin’ fer home next dawn.)

“Along in April to see the woodcock flirt an’ dance’s as good’s a circus. Sometime, maybe, ’twould pleasure you to take the trip with me, and Sairy Ann’d be proud to hev you stop with her. My, here we are at your corner! How good conversation does pass the time!”

Without in the least realizing that he had been doing the whole of the talking, the pieman handed Brooke out at the door stone, Tatters limping carefully after, and Maria turned down the lane to the barn, with which she was perfectly familiar.

Brooke, hastening in to explain their unique guest to her mother and tend the sick paw, found that Mrs. Peck had been sent for to “sit up” with a bereaved household down at Gilead; telling Mrs. Lawton that it was expected of her, no matter whom she might be “accommodating,” she had left immediately, promising to return the next night.

Brooke prepared the dinner, to which was added as a contribution, received in the spirit in which it was offered, one of Mrs. Banks’ most juicy whortleberry pies (truly the best of its kind), which the Cub pronounced to be “just bully,” while in turn the pieman praised Brooke’s coffee, and, for some reason that he could not have explained, kept his knife in abeyance, while by his cheerful common sense gained the respect of his entertainers.

After he had left, taking Brooke’s ready promise to go over the route with him some spring day to see the woodcock dance and hear the partridge drum, the cloud that his cheerfulness had lifted again settled over the girl’s spirits. Why was no gleam vouchsafed to lighten her darkness as the vision of pies had led these humble people into a sort of promised land?

When she had washed the dishes and made everything neat, it was still only half-past two. She could neither sew nor read nor settle herself to write to Lucy Dean, her usual outlet when cast down; a new sort of restlessness seized her, that of a wild animal caged, who paces to and fro to its own exhaustion.

Looking into her father’s room, she saw that he slept, while Tatters, his hurt paw comfortably stretched out, lay on the rug. Her mother was writing letters at the old desk; and going out to the barn she found the Cub, with Pam of course close by, mending some spring traps that he discovered in an old barrel, and preparing to set them, for mink or weasel tracks, he could not tell which, had been seen that morning about the chicken house. He was so absorbed and fascinated with his occupation that he only grunted answers to his sister’s questions, so she returned to the house, realizing that the change was doing wonders for the Cub, which was one consolation.

“What is the matter with me?” she said, half aloud. “Is it an illness coming on? or can it be the painting fever? The air seems to sparkle and rush through me like electricity! Oh, why did I not work harder when I had the time? for now if the desire comes I cannot stop,” and Brooke wrung her hands, and then laughed hysterically at her tragic action.

Going to her room, she unpacked palette and paint box, and took the maul stick from the closet, where it had remained all winter tied to some umbrellas. Of canvas she had none, but hunting up some bits of manila board from between her books, she took them to the kitchen and spread them on the table, where she had left the turpentine and oil. What should she try? The snow and rock bit from the window lacked colour and was too harsh in outline to be seductive to her mood. A scarlet geranium in a pot against the dark window frame caught her eye, and seating herself, she began to draw it in rapidly with chalk—anything, if it would only find vent for the fever of action that tingled in her finger tips.

She was surprised to find that a certain accuracy as well as facility of touch had not left her, in spite of stiffened fingers and lack of practice. For her colour sense she claimed no credit; it was born with her. But after the outline took shape and she began to paint and give it texture, she dropped her brush again as the words of Lorenz seemed whispered in her ears, “You have not yet had the awakening, for it you must wait; it is the same with me; you must interpret your vision and see it on the canvas before you can create; but first of all you must know and feel, even if you suffer.”

The awakening had not come to her, and still she waited; did she not now know and feel, and had she not suffered enough? The stiff geranium cramped in its pot bore her no message to interpret, and as a snow-squall darkened her window she cast the brush aside. Shivering at the utter silence of the house, she fled to her room and, throwing herself face downward on her bed, was abandoning herself to the spirits of darkness, when the thought of her other self, radiating light as Lorenz had painted her, crossed her wild mood, checking it, and she lay quite still until her pounding heart calmed to its regular beating, when bodily fatigue claimed its dole and she fell asleep.

When she awoke it was after five o’clock; the squall had passed away and sunset light was warming the whole sky, even taking the chill from the full moon, which it had worn on its apparent rise from the river ice.

Below stairs everything was as she had left it, and yet a different atmosphere pervaded the place, and the tension left her throat. The Cub came in with the news, at which he seemed to think she would rejoice, that Robert Stead was better and would be out again on the morrow. Her mother expressed unfeigned pleasure, and Brooke was almost ashamed of the fact that she had for the moment forgotten that he was ill. Yet she always enjoyed his visits and watched for them, for he was a travelled and well-read man, and, when off his guard, most entertaining, and not without a certain compelling magnetism.

“Let’s hurry supper,” said the Cub, when he had brought in the milk. “I’ve had the last milking lesson I need, and I can do it all right now without pulling too hard, or squirting, or laming my wrists. Larsen says I’ll be worth twenty a month and board by summer if I keep on steady,—just as if I wouldn’t! But I’ve got to keep the other end up besides, and I’ve some reading to do to-night, if I’m going up to the shack again in the morning.” Crossing the kitchen, he picked his mother up as if she had been a feather, and whirling her about, gave her a hearty kiss that sent a glow to her heart and cheeks at the same time, before he seated her, like a small child, on the table edge, where she struggled, laughed, and was sublimely happy at his rough caress. Then, further to carry out his genial mood, he bounced into his father’s room and, wheeling him to the kitchen, pushed the chair close to the table, and thus they all supped together, a circumstance that had seemed impossible in Mrs. Peck’s presence.

After Adam Lawton had gone to bed, the Cub helping him as usual, the boy settled himself by the bright lamp in the kitchen with his books, while Mrs. Lawton and Brooke sat by the firelight in the library, talking quietly. Brooke, hunched on the rug, leaned her head back against her mother’s knee, and yielded to the soothing touch of gentle fingers upon her eyes and brow.

Presently Tatters began to growl deeply and give what they had learned to designate as his animal bark, quite different in quality from that with which he announced the approach of man. Pam, of course, joined him, springing from the cushioned chair in which she slept.

The Cub went to the door and listened—cackles of alarm were coming from the chicken house.

“It’s the weasel or mink, or whatever it was that prowled last night,” he reported. “I’ll go out and see, because Stead says that sometimes, if you leave them all night, they gnaw out of the trap. Don’t you want to come too, Sis? Hurry up, then, and get your cape. No, don’t let the dogs out, they’ll get pinched in the trap, or chew the beast up, maybe, and I want to keep him whole. I guess the moon is bright enough, we will not need the lantern,” and seizing a stout stick, the Cub tiptoed carefully out to make as little noise as possible, not having yet learned that to wild animals scent serves as a warning even more than sound. Brooke, however, preferred to take the lantern, and lighting it, she quickly followed.

The Cub examined his traps. They were untouched, but as he knelt he saw a straight row of tracks in the snow, that were too large to belong to either weasel or mink. Following these, they led him around to the roosting house. There, between it and the open yard, something that appeared to be a small dog crouched in the corner.

The moon shone brightly between the buildings, and every hair of the little beast stood out as clearly as by electric light.

“It’s a half-grown fox,” whispered the Cub, to Brooke. “Good work if I can only kill it; there’ll be one less to kill the fowls. Look out that it doesn’t dodge past you there, Sis,” and the Cub was going toward it, club raised. But the little fox never stirred. They could only tell that it was alive by the heaving of its lean sides.

“Stop!” said Brooke, hoarsely, laying a detaining and no very gentle touch on her brother’s arm. “I won’t have it killed. I believe that it is starving, like those quails I saw this morning, only they could move, and this fox is too weak. I’m going to take it in the barn and feed it, and make it live. Get me some milk, and eggs, and meat.”

“You’re crazy, Sis; it is only a fox, and they’re bad things. It’ll bite you and make no end of a row,” but as he glanced at her face he saw something there that stopped all argument, and he hastened to obey.

Then Brooke, placing the lantern on the ground, drew nearer to the little beast. Yes, he was starving. He tried to stand and toppled over against the shed; he was powerless and at bay. Fixing her eyes on his, she read his feelings interpreted by her own of that very afternoon, and kneeling there in the snow, she understood him.

A vital wave swept over her. Hanging the lantern on her arm, she slipped the cape from off her shoulders with a swift movement, and covered the fox with it, wrapping him completely. Then, lifting him in her arms, for he was less weighty than a well-fed cat, she carried the bundle to the barn, and slipping the latch, laid the poor little beast on the haymow, a futile snap and snarl or two having been its only protests.

When the Cub returned with the various articles of food, he was astonished to see the pair facing each other, not a yard apart, with the lantern hanging from a beam shedding light upon the strange scene.

While the Cub was near the fox would not touch the food, but when he hid from its sight, after a time it lapped the egg that Brooke broke and put before it, as a dog would, and presently the milk; then, still wearing the hunted look, settled deeper into the hay lair where she had placed it, panting and with lolling tongue.

“We will go away now and leave it in peace; only promise me, Adam, that when it grows strong it shall run free, and no one shall kill it; remember, it is my guest.” Adam promised, and hastily securing the latch, they went back to the house. The Cub went to the library to tell his mother of the adventure, but Brooke lingered in the kitchen. A half-hour passed, and hearing no sound, the Cub went to the door. Returning softly, he beckoned his mother to follow, and together they stood in the shadow of the doorway, looking into the room. Two lamps stood side by side on the mantel-shelf, casting an oblique light; below and at one side of the fireplace stood Brooke, palette in hand, a straight-backed chair before her; resting on its arms, as if it were an easel, was the great oblong bread-board, and on this the girl was painting, with broad rapid strokes, the head of a fox. Her cloak still hung from her shoulders, her cheeks glowed; her eyes they could not see until she half turned her head for a moment as if following a strayed memory, then they noticed a strange light in them as of inspiration.

Quietly they crept back into the dark and waited. An hour passed; still Brooke kept at work. Another thirty minutes and they heard the chair move and again they went to the door.

Brooke stood back from the improvised easel, her hands behind her, looking at her work. From the board gazed back the head of the little fox, roughly done, but with the look in its eyes at once hunted, defiant, and pleading,—not an image, a created thing, living and breathing. Through suffering and its kinship had come the revelation to Brooke that if she willed she might be the painter of animals, and as she looked again, Lorenz’ words sounded in her ears. She had felt and suffered, and had seen her vision in the eyes of the hunted beast. She had interpreted it, she felt for what it stood, and now, crude as was the labor, it lived under her brush. She had awakened, but the strength of the vital touch was his, and he could not know it. Kneeling before the chair with clasped hands, as if at some shrine, not to the picture, but to what it stood for, Brooke took new courage.

Before his mother could restrain Adam he had dashed across the kitchen, and stood a moment with his hands resting on his sister’s shoulders. Then, without warning, he tipped back her head and gave her a kiss of genuine boyish enthusiasm, crying, “That’s a living picture all right, Sis. Look out it don’t get away from you. I bet you’ve struck your luck this time.”