Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a railroad village. To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible. Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation. On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until recently he had shared the current belief--"_tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_"--because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and faithfully, forgive not at all. As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a cluster of daisies, which he had rejected. "My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as pretty indoors as out on the meadow." She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away.