It was five years now since the war had ended, and in those years she had recovered both her inward confidence and her outward prosperity. The misfortunes that had threatened the two farms had passed over her like wild geese. Even the labour question had been lessened, if not solved, by the application of electricity and gasoline. She had made a name that was not unknown among the farmers of the state; she had reclaimed two unproductive farms from the clutch of broomsedge and sassafras. In shallow soil, where her father had ploughed only six inches deep, she was now raising rich and abundant crops. Her dairy, she knew, was as well managed, her butter as good, as any that could be found in the country. The products of her dairy, with the name Old Farm stamped under the device of the harp-shaped pine, were bringing the highest prices in the market. She could smile now, with her butter selling in the Washington dairy at a dollar a pound, over the timidity with which she had, modestly asked thirty cents in the beginning. By that subtle combination of prudence and imprudence which she called character, she had turned disappointment into contentment and failure into success. Riding there in the silver gleams which flashed up from the life-everlasting, she appeared, after the hard years, to have ripened into the last mellowness of maturity. Though her figure in the shirtwaist and knickerbockers of brown corduroy was no longer youthful, it was still shapely. The texture of her skin was rough and hard like the rind of winter fruit, but the dark red had not faded, and her eyes beneath the whitened hair were still as blue as a jay bird's wing. Though she did not look young for her fifty years, she looked as if the years had been victorious ones. As she opened the new gate, and passing through, turned to close it behind her, she heard the sound of approaching wheels, and saw the piebald horse and peculiar gig of Mr. Kettledrum ascending from the dip in the road. When he reached her they stopped to speak, after the manner of the country, and the old "mail rider," who was just returning on his circuit of twenty-six miles, described, with sprightliness, the condition of the roads over which he had travelled. "Three big trees blew down on the Whippernock road the other night," he said, "and I reckon they'll lie thar until they rot if the farmers down that way don't cut them up for logs to burn. The Government sent an inspector down last week and he rode over my circuit along with me." A note of pride crept into his quavering voice. "He told me he'd never seen any worse roads in the whole course of his recollection. No, ma'am, not in the whole course of his recollection." "I hope he'll do something about them. After all, the Government is responsible for the rural delivery."