“You’re a good lass,” the old man said suddenly, looking her in the face, and for the first time his voice sounded warm and strong. Their eyes met in full and happy accord, and their smiles mingled like the smiles of intimate friends. Their natures, each kindly and beautiful in its way, reached out one to the other and were enriched. Just for a moment she saw him as he had been when he was young, the affectionate, dreamy soul whom so many had helped and loved. He in his turn saw her as the future of the place, the soul that was making the new dream for the house. The beauty of kindness and good humour and happy work, she was bringing it all these, just as his own wife had brought them long ago. But it was a new beauty, and there was no place in it for him; he had his own, and his own was quite complete. Now he was beginning to see what he had done—how he had wandered into another’s dream of home. There was no room for him here unless he was ready to renounce his own, a thing which he had not thought possible even with death. Already he was being punished as those are punished who are false to their dreams; he could neither look forward happily nor yet behind. Suddenly he was conscious of being stifled by the pleasant room, oppressed by the fire and the sun and the smell of the food. His eyes dropped wearily from the girl’s face, and age and blankness came back to his own. “It’s terble warm,” he said, in a fretted tone, and pushed back his chair sharply and got to his feet. “I’ll gang out,” he added, looking towards the door. “I partly what think I’ll be easier outside.” Thomas pushed away his plate, though rather regretfully, and got to his feet, too. “Ay, do,” he answered as heartily as he could, though he did not look at his father while he spoke. He did not look at his wife, either, though it was only a minute since they had laughed at each other across the cups. He knew as well as she that they had expected to linger over the meal, talking so fast they were on each other’s heels, and digging old stories together out of the past. They had expected to hear the old man laugh and crack his joke, but so far the laughter and jokes had all been theirs. There descended upon them again a stage chill, such as Thomas had sampled on his coming in. Then, however, the scene had waited for an actor that didn’t appear. Now the curtain was down too soon on a set that had been the work of months. Thomas gulped his tea hurriedly and looked longingly at the scones, and then looked hastily away and felt ashamed.... “You’ve nobbut made a terble poor tea,” Agnes said wistfully to the guest. “Nay, I’ve done rarely, thank ye, missis, that I have. Now I come to think on, I’d summat on t’road.” “Nobbut a sparrow-peck, that’s what it is! Cat would ha’ eaten more, I’m sure.” “I’ve a new pipe for you, Father,” Thomas put in, fumbling about the mantel for his gift. “Ay, an’ there’s bacca an’ all for you in a tin.”