“When the moonbeams fell again upon the meadow-lands the shadows were gone and Kitty stood alone upon the banks of the mill-race, looking at the rushing dark waters.  When she turned homewards she met Joel face to face.  He was pale, but a triumphant light shone in his eyes.  He came forward with open arms—­’Kitty, my Kitty!’ he cried.

“Kitty stood one moment, with eyes that seemed to pierce to his very heart, then she turned to the splashing waters and pointed solemnly.

“‘Elihu, where is Elihu?’ she asked; and in that moment, when Joel hung his head before her without a word of answer, Kitty fell down like a dead thing at his feet.

“And I, who knew her so well, I tell you that Kitty died there on that meadow by the race, just twenty year ago to-day.

“Joel, you ask?  What come to Joel?  Well, p’raps he felt bad just at first, for he went away for two, three year, I believe.  But he come back, did Joel, and Kitty never molested him by word or deed.  You can see his house there below the mill; he’s married long since and his house is full of children.  But never, since that June night twenty year ago, has he dared set foot at the old homestead.  Folks talked—­of course they talked—­but Kitty, the staid, sad woman they called Kitty, heeded nothing that was said.  Joel, he tried to right himself and writ her many a long letter at the first.

“‘It was a fair wrestle,’ said he, ’and him as was beaten was to leave the place and not come back for months or years.  Elihu was beat on the wrestle and he’s gone that’s all there is to it.’

“Kitty, she never answered them letters; she remembered that uplifted arm as the vast shadows swayed towards her on the meadow, and Joel, he give it up.”

* * * * *

By this time the heavy hay-waggons began to move across the meadows.  It was drawing near supper-time and the speaker rose and briskly set aside her knitting.

“I believe that’s all,” she said.  “It’s a tragic story for a country place like this.  But now set down, won’t you, and wait till the men come up for supper?  Mebbe you’ll be glad of a cup of tea before you go any further.”

The stranger, well within the shade of the clustering vines, made no reply.

“Say,” cried she, from the porch door; “set down and wait for supper, won’t you?”

Surprised at the silence, accustomed as she was to the garrulity of country neighbours, she stepped out into the piazza.  A beautiful woman she, of forty years, whose fine face seemed now set in an aureole of sunbeams.  The stranger took off his hat and stooped somewhat towards her; there was something familiar in the gesture, which set the wild blood throbbing at her heart-strings as though the past twenty years had been a dream.

“Kitty, my dear love, Kitty.”

The farm men came singing up the lane, the heavy waggons grinding slowly along in the sunshine.  All this, the everyday life, was now the dream, and they, Kitty and Elihu, had met in the meadow lands of the earthly Paradise.