Brooke, who knew the good woman’s pet infirmity, hardly listened to her; there was another theme that filled her brain, almost shaping itself to rhythm, not of the past alone, but the present, the future—of all time, as old as life itself, the unending song of the man who sows, of the grain in the field that endures the winter and leaps upward, spears aloft, militant, at the bugle of spring; of the grain in the ear, of the molten gold of the harvest that goes to the mill, of the clear white flour that the man’s mate blends with the magic leaven to be bread for the house. And her heart took wing as she looked at the loaves, for if the weal of the land rests on the farmer’s plough, second only should stand the toil of the maker of bread. There were only four loaves, it is true, but to Brooke they stood for a definite power—her first direct productive work. Choosing one from the rest and half wrapping it in a white towel, she carried it to her mother, who was sitting beside her father, whose chair was placed close by the sunny window. For the two days past his lips had moved, though inarticulately, and his wife was doubly on the alert for a single spoken word. Holding the loaf before her as if it had been a trophy, Brooke crossed the room and, folding back the towel, the steaming odour of the bread reached her mother’s nostrils. Then she held out her hands to her daughter, taking the bread from her almost reverently. “Watch father!” whispered Brooke. There was a look of recognition struggling with other visions in his eyes, and strange incoherent sounds were formed on the struggling lips. His eyes fixed themselves on the loaf, which his wife held close. His nostrils quivered as if in unison with his other awakening senses. Brooke knelt by his chair, endeavouring to read sense in the vague sounds he uttered. There came a pause, a hush, and then, in hoarse, uncertain accents, unmistakable yet feeble at the close, Adam Lawton whispered two words, “New bread.” Meanwhile, outside in the kitchen, warming himself by the stove, was the Cub, who, coming in from the cold and the exertion of rounding up refractory chickens after their morning sunning, had brought a keen appetite with him. Snatching a knife that lay on the table, he cut a thick crust from one of the loaves; this he hastened to spread with molasses from a jug in the pantry, and then stood with his back to the fire, taking great round bites with the wholesome gusto of six, instead of his old-time critical mouthing of surfeited dyspeptic discontent. * * * * *