he makes the leisurely round of his line fence, warns his gardening neighbor that it is too early to plant beans.  True, the poplars may be showing a tinge of green, and the buds of the hickory may have lighted their tiny candle flames on the winter-bared boughs; but the “blackberry winter” is yet to come, and there are rigorous possibilities still lingering in the high-flying clouds and the sudden-shifting winds.

It was on the fourth Sunday in the month that Ardea rose early and went fasting to the communion service at St. John’s-in-Paradise.  Primarily, St. John’s was merely the religious factor in Mr. Duxbury Farley’s scheme of country-colony promotion, and for the greater part of the year its silver-toned bell was silent and its appeal was mainly to the artistic eye.  But latterly St. Michael’s, the mother church in South Tredegar, had attained a new assistant rector whose zeal was not yet dulled by apathetic unresponsiveness on the part of the to-be-helped.  Hence St. Michael’s various missions flourished for the time, and once a month, if not oftener, the bell of St. John’s sent its note abroad on the still morning air of Paradise.

On this particular Sunday morning Ardea was early at the church, and she was glad she had decided to wear her cloth gown.  It had turned cooler in the night and the azure March sky was hidden behind a gray cloud mass which hung low on the slopes of the mountain.  There was no fire in the church heater; and the few worshipers—­the Vancourt Henniker girls, the two Misses Harrison, John Young-Dickson, of The Dell, dragged out at the chilly hour by his new wife, and Mrs. Schuyler Farnsworth and her daughter, all of the country-house colony beyond the creek—­sat or knelt, and shivered through the service in decorous discomfort.

Miss Dabney was not looking quite as well as usual, as Miss Betsy Harrison remarked to her sister, Miss Willie, in a church whisper.  She had grown thinner during the winter, and though the slate-blue eyes were as clear and steadfast as before, there was a strained look in them like that in the eyes of the spent runner.  Mountain View Avenue, rurally alert for something to talk about, decided it was trouble rather than ill health.  Miss Eva Farley corresponded with Jessica Farnsworth, and there had been European hints of an understanding between Vincent and Ardea.  Coupling this with young Gordon’s ostentatious devotion, Nan’s appearance, and Tom’s sudden determination to go back to college, there was the groundwork for a very pretty story which sufficiently accounted for Miss Dabney’s changed looks and for her growing reluctance to be included in the country colony’s social divagations.  She was engaged to one man and in love with another, who was clearly ineligible—­this was the Mountain View Avenue summing-up of the matter; and some condemned and some pitied, and all were careful not to step within the barrier of aloofness with which Miss Dabney had of late surrounded herself.