A step on the stairs outside made itself heard. "Come in, dear. Ah was just thinking about you." Bob flung his cap on the bed, sat down on a cricket beside his mother, and leaned his head against her shoulder. "Tired, dear?" "No, just hot. I've been over every field on the farm since breakfast." "In all this sun!" "Do you think it ought to cease to shine to shade your boy? There'll be a right smart crop this year." "So your father was telling me yesterday." "I've got better hands than usual." "And they have a better overseer." She let fall the stocking from her left hand and patted the shock of black hair resting on her shoulder. Silence fell between them--the embarrassment that comes from the broaching of a delicate subject. "It's hard work," he sighed, and her mother-love knew that he did not refer to the management of the farm. "We all have our dragons to fight, and yours is one of the hardest kind. Ah'm sure he's growing weaker, though." "But he's still in the ring," groaned Bob, with a comical look, and they laughed in sympathy. "I ought to have begun on him long years ago for your sake, ma dear, but--it wasn't you!" he blurted out, and hastened to kiss her, lest she be offended. She could not help just a little sigh. "It's what happens to most mothers, and we are thankful for the result, and put our vanity into our pocket." "I don't want you to suppose that I'm such a puppy as to believe that she--you know who--cares for me--that way, you know. But I happened to think one day when--well, never mind what happened--I just thought that while she might never care anyway, she was dead sure not to if I went on being the kind of thing I was." "True, dear, and even if she never did,"--how she longed to give him hope, as she had given him every toy he asked for in his baby days! But wisdom came to her now, and love gave her strength,--"even if she never did, the victory would still be a victory." "And you'd care, anyway. Oh, mothers are good things! Do you mind my telling you-all this?" He was sitting before her now, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. She leaned forward and kissed him. "You've given me the greatest happiness Ah've known for years, dear." He pulled at the stockings in her lap. "I don't think I've had much show lately, do you?" "You mean----?" "Oh, well, I reckon I don't mean anything. It's all in the game. There's father," as a cry of "O-oh, Sophy!" was heard below. "Sophy's up here in the north room, dad," he called, eliciting from his mother the expected-- "You impertinent boy!" The Doctor came in, bringing with him an air of excitement that made Bob cry,-- "What's up?" Mrs. Morgan laid down her half-darned sock in anticipation. "You never can guess the latest development." "Ah've no desire to, Henry. Ah'd rather hear it at once." "Who do you think's come?" "Where?" "To the Neighborhood."