Was ’Melia repenting as he had said she should repent—repenting that broken tryst that she knew in her heart she should never, never keep? All her life she had always had what she wanted. But she had never wanted anything as she wanted the love of this one man, who was a stranger to her, and who was even now tramping away from her, miles away already along the dusty road that led to the nearest town. Every year when the harvest moon drew near the hoppers gathered into the camp beneath the hill, and made their fires beside the straw huts in the hollow, and every year the picking went on busily in the fields; but there were some folk who said that there never was such a merry “hopping” as there had been that year—for ’Melia never got time to go back to it. She worked hard to keep the laundry work together, and she did it, though there were folk enough that said she would never succeed. One by one the children grew up, and were put to service or to a trade, and at last the mother was laid to rest in the graveyard, and ’Melia was left with only one of her brood at her heels. It had been a hard fight, and save for one hand that had often been stretched out for her in the dark and unknown to herself—she had fought it unaided. There had been no time, as she had guessed, for larking, or trysting, or love-making. And it was in a very quiet spirit that one autumn Sabbath, when the hops were all in, ’Melia Shaw walked to church with a middle-aged man named Bill Wilkins, and said a gentle and quite untremulous “Yes” to the old question that is for ever being asked and answered in so many and varied moods. AN ONLY SON AN ONLY SON “’Ave you ’eard as Widow Collins’ lad be down from London, Mr. Barfield?” said a little spare woman who stood willingly patient before the counter of a small shop and watched the grocer’s deft fingers pack up a neighbour’s tea and sugar before attending to her own demands. It was dark, for it was eventide, and the shop did not face the sunset that was going on brilliantly behind the pines at the top of the village street; but any one could have told from the tone of the voice that there was something more than common about Widow Collins’ lad. Mr. Barfield lit an odoriferous paraffin lamp and hung it to a hook on the low ceiling, amid a wonderful collection of boots and hats and sunshades, of kettles and coils of rope and saucepans—and of Spanish onions on strings. “What, he that’s clerk in the London Post Office?” asked the other customer with sudden interest.