As to Brooke, she walked straight forward, almost mechanically, throughout those summer days, filled alike with work and sunshine. The anxiety of the winter had been to know if the new life could possibly become a permanence. Now life under the Sign of the Fox seemed a thing assured; and yet the days seemed longer labourwise now than before, for though Brooke could read the material future, she did not know herself. The culmination of Stead’s friendship pained her, almost haunted her, though chiefly because it had laid bare the needs of her own heart. Ideal and real alike had grown intangible. Even Lorenz’ picture seemed to look at her in reproach, and the giant shadow of the farmer-on-shares crossed the fields less frequently now that the growing time was past. It seemed, too, that Enoch Fenton’s words were proving true, for the man had grown gaunt under the scorching sun and toil, and Bisbee duly reported that his plans had fallen through about his sweetheart and settling, and that he was going to the old country before winter. As to Lucy’s proposed descent upon the farmer-on-shares, begun in a spirit of teasing and continued purely through curiosity, it was, as she afterward termed it, “a regular toboggan slide”; and no matter in what way or from where she approached him, without the least apparent effort on his part, he was immediately at the farthest possible point away from her. So that a one-sided wager she had made with Brooke, who professed complete ignorance, that she could tell the colour of his eyes and what he would look like without his “barbarous beard” at first sight, remained unproven,—for Lucy there was no near-by first sight at all. From the West homestead Lucy Dean had gone to Gordon to visit Mrs. Parks. After she had been away a week the early twilight saw her coming up the cross-road from Gilead station, driven by the ubiquitous Bisbee boy in the same buggy that had brought Ashton the night of the storm. No one was ever wholly surprised at any action on Lucy’s part, and when Mrs. Lawton and Brooke noticed that the buggy had driven away again, they concluded that Lucy had come to bid them good-by before returning home, as the papers were full of the return of the new Mrs. Dean to New York, of the satisfaction of their friends in general, and of the popularity of the couple. They themselves were both dubious as to how Lucy would enjoy being even temporarily only a daughter in the house where she had reigned supreme; and though Mr. Dean had cordially approved of Lucy’s engagement, it was well understood that it must necessarily be a long one. After the greetings were over, and Lucy learned their thoughts of her coming, she did not appear as much at ease as usual.