"Yes, there'll be a hard frost to-night if it clears." She turned away from him, lifting her gaze to the sky where broken clouds were driven rapidly toward the south. A sword of light was thrust suddenly through the greyness, and she said slowly, as if the words were of profound significance, "The wind seems to be changing." Always responsive to her surroundings, she told herself that the landscape looked as if it were running away from the wind. "Does it really look this way or is it only in my mind," she thought, as they went on past the fork. Of course, if she had to go over it again, she could never bring herself to be married; but since she had walked into the marriage with open eyes, all she could do now was to endeavour to make the best of her mistake. Nathan was a good man and--well, you couldn't have everything! Youth, with its troubled rapture and its unsatisfied craving, was well over. Green evening skies. The scent of wild grape. The flutter of the heart like a caged bird. Feet flying toward happiness. . . . Yes, he was a good man, and you couldn't have everything. When she reached the farm she left Nathan to build up the fire in the hall stove, and ran upstairs to put the finishing touches to the bedrooms she had prepared for the children. Everything was in order. There was nothing that she could find to do; yet she lingered to straighten a picture or change the position of a chair until she heard wheels approaching. Then, after she ran downstairs and exchanged embarrassed greetings, she visited the henhouse and the barn before she went into the kitchen to help Fluvanna with supper. All the work of the farm, so heavy and engrossing on other days that it made her a slave to routine, was suspended like a clock after the hour has struck. "Do you want me to make the hard sauce for the plum pudding, Fluvanna?" "Naw, Miss Dorindy, there ain't nothin' on earth for you to bother yo' head with to-day. Miss Minnie May has made it, and she's helping me as much as I want. You sit right down in the parlour and wait till supper is ready. I don't see," she concluded in a faultfinding tone, "why anybody wanted to have a poky wedding like this. There ain't even a fiddle to make things lively." Dorinda went out, but not into the parlour. As she passed through the hall she caught a glimpse of Nathan, in his new suit of grey tweed, sitting bolt upright in the best chair, while he slowly turned the leaves of the family Bible. No, she had always disliked the parlour, in spite of her great-grandfather's library which almost covered the walls. Would it be possible, she wondered, to turn the room into a more comfortable and cheerful place? Yet she shrank from making any definite change. Though she hated the furniture and the air of chill repose in which it had weathered the years, she could not banish the feeling that it was dedicated to the ancestral spirits of her family.