as her own.  And Vivia saw that all this beating and longing and burning had loosened and shot into manhood a nature that under the snow of its eightieth winter would yet be that of a boy.  Ray could never be any taller than he was to-day, but he had broad, sturdy shoulders and a close-knit, nervous frame, while in his honest, ugly face, that, arch or grave, kept its one contrast of black eyes and brilliant teeth, there was as much to love as in the superb beauty of Beltran.

They had reached the meadow’s edge at length; Ray was growing more serious, as the time hurried, when little Jane, with a smothered exclamation, prepared to cross the wall.  For there they were, sleek and glossy, chattering gently to each other, pecking about, the wind blowing open their feathers till they became top-heavy, and looking for all the world, as Janet said, like pretty little old ladies dressed up to go out to tea.  And near them, quite at home in the marshy domain, strutted and lunched a fine gallant of a turkey, who ruffled his redness, dropped all his plumes about him, and personated nothing less than some stately dowager sailing in flounces and brocades.  Ray caught back their discoverer, launched a few stepping-stones across, and, speeding from foothold to foothold, very soon sent His Magnificence fluttering over the fence and forward before them, and returned with the two little runaway hens slung over his arm, where, after a trifle of protestation and a few subdued cackles of crestfallen acquiescence, having a great deal to tell the other hens on reaching home once more, they very contentedly enjoyed the new aspect of the world upsidedown.

“And here’s where she’s made her nest,” said little Jane, stepping aside from a tangle of blackberry-vines, herds-grass, and harebells, where lay a half-dozen pullet pearls.  “A pretty mother you’d make, Miss, gadding and gossiping down in the meadow with that naughty black hen!  Who do you suppose is going to bring up your family for you?  Did you speak to the butterflies to hatch them under their yellow wings?  I shall just tie you to an old shoe!”

And taking the winking, blinking culprits from Kay, she ran along home to make ready his package, for which there was not more than an hour left.  Vivia turned to follow, for she also wanted to help; but Ray, lingering by the wall and pointing out some object, caused her to remain.

“It will be such a long time before I see it again,” said he.

They leaned upon the stone wall, interspersed, overgrown, and veiled with moss and maiden-hair and blossoming brambles.  Before them lay the long meadow, sprinkled with sunbeams, green to its last ripe richness, discolored only where the tall grass made itself hoary in the breeze, or where some trail of dun brown ran up through all intermediate tints to break in a glory of gold at the foot of the screen of woods that far away gloomed like a frowning fortress of shade, but, approaching, feathered off its tips in the glow, and let the mellow warmth of olive light gild to a lustrous depth all its darkly verdurous hollows.  Near them the vireos were singing loud and sweet.