The low voice died away into silence; from afar came the soft cooing of a dove, soothingly insistent as the croon of a lullaby; the riotous call of the larks arose in gleeful chorus; within the cabin were the sounds of movement: footsteps, the pushing of a pan across the table, and then a subdued pounding which sent Buck’s thoughts whirling back into the distant past to hover over one of his most sacred memories. He sat perfectly still. How many years had gone by since he had heard a good woman singing over her household tasks! How very long ago it seemed since his mother had made bread to the tune of that same ’punch, punch, slap—punch, punch’! His stern face softened into a tenderness that had not visited it since he was a boy. Mother—The French Rose—it was a pretty name. Buck was not in the least aware of it but when a man thus links the name of a woman with that of his mother, it has a significance. The faint nicker of a horse aroused Allday from his apathetic interest in flies; he raised his head and sent forth a resounding whinny in response; the blare of it was yet in the air when Rose stood in the open doorway. I despair of picturing her to you, so difficult it is to portray in words the loveliness of a woman’s beauty; and the charm of the French Rose was as many-hued as the changing sky at sunset; the modulations of her voice ranged from the grave, rich tones of an organ to the melting timbre of a flute, pitched to the note of the English thrush; her very presence was as steadfastly delightful as the fragrance of a hay field, newly mown. In a long life I have known but one such woman and this was she. First, then, she harmonized. The simple gown, turned in at the throat, with sleeves rolled high on the arms for greater freedom in her work, the short skirt impeding but little her activity of movement, covered a form meant by God to be a mother of men; and the graceful column of her neck supported a head that did honor to her form. Lustre was in every strand of the black hair, against which the ears set like the petals of a flower; the contour of the face, the regularity of the features, were flawless, unless for an overfulness of the lips in repose; the natural olive complexion, further darkened by the sun-tan from her out-door life, could not conceal the warm color of the blood which glowed in her cheeks like the red stain on a luscious peach; and the mystery of her dark, serious eyes had drawn men miles to the solving—in vain. So she stood, silently regarding Buck, who as silently regarded her. When she had first come upon him, in those few moments of unaccustomed softness when the hard mask of assertive manhood had been slipped aside, her questioning gaze had probed the depths of him, wondering and warming to what it found there. Her smile awoke Buck to a sense of his rudeness and he swept off his hat with the haste of embarrassment. "I ’ve come for Pickles," he blurted out, anxious to excuse his unwarranted presence.