Monroe watched her proceedings with tolerant kindliness. It was not his business to discourage her. He knew what it was to be discouraged, and he felt that there was quite enough discouragement going about in life without his adding to it. "I tell you they would like to be reconciled, Mr. Monroe," said Cynthia. "They don't know they would like it, but they would." "Wal, mebbe they would. They're gittin' to be old men. And when you git along as far as that, you don't, perhaps, worry so much about _bein'_ reconciled, but neither does it seem as worth while _not_ to. There's a good deal that's sort of instructive about gittin' old," he ruminated. "It's very lonely for them both, I think;" and Cynthia's voice fell into the ready accents of youthful pity. "Their quarrel's been kinder comp'ny for 'em," suggested Monroe. "It's overstayed its time," asserted Cynthia. "Mebbe," answered Monroe. The crisis--for Cynthia had been looking for a crisis--came, after all, unexpectedly. She had been for the mail, and as she drove the amenable horse over the homeward road she strained her eyes to read the last page of an unusually absorbing letter, for it was again sundown, and the Granger twins again sat in their doorways. There was a decided chill in the air, this late afternoon. The old men, though they were sturdy still, had put on their coats, and from behind them the comfortable glow of two stove doors promised a later hour of warmth and comfort. Their aspect was more melancholy than usual, whether it were that the bleakness of winter seemed pressing close upon the bleakness of lonely age, or that there was an added weariness in the droop of the thin shoulders and the fixed eyes--it was certain that the picture had gained a shadow of depression.