Unwittingly she had spread her shawl where March had laid his rug last night. The rough bark of the tree-bole hurt her presently. Her gown was thin, and her flesh less firm than it had been six weeks ago. She slid down upon the shawl, her head on the cushion, and reached out, in idle misery, to pick up some withered leaves and small, unripe apples scattered on the grass. March had dropped them while hearkening to his sister’s criticism of the Bohemian household. She was as idly—and as miserably—tearing apart the leaves toughened by the heat of the day, when she heard a joyous rush behind her and felt the panting of hot breath upon her neck, and Thor was kissing her face and licking her hands. She sprang to her feet and cast a wild glance along the path and under the trees. There was no one in sight. The grounds were peremptorily posted, and no vagrant foot ever crossed them. She took in the situation at once. March had gone to New York in the five o’clock train; the dog, wandering aimlessly about and missing his master, had espied her, and accepted her as a substitute. She knelt down and clasped her arms about his head, laid her cheek to his burly muzzle. “O Thor! Thor! you would help me if you could.” Just as she had fondled him in those far-away, blissful days. Her hand was tangled in his coat when, looking across his huge bulk, she had met March Gilchrist’s eyes. True eyes—and bonny and true, which must never read her soul again. “Thor! dear Thor!” She cried it out in a passion of tears. The faithful fellow moaned a little in sympathy. The more eloquent than human longing to comfort the sorrowing, never seen except in a dog’s eyes, filled and rounded his. “I wouldn’t cry if I could help it, dear,” said Hetty, her arch smile striking through the rain. “And nobody else should see me shed a tear. You are my only confidant; and I do believe you understand—a little.” He was not an indifferent consoler, it appeared, for in fifteen minutes both of them were asleep, their heads upon the same pillow. The sunset sea breeze rustled the stooping boughs. Arrows of greenish gold, tipped with fire, were shot at random between the leaves at the sleeping pair. Hetty was very pale, but the grieving droop of the facial lines, the slight fullness of the lower lip, and the slow curve of the arm thrown above her head made her seem like a child. She looked what she was, fairly tired out—weariness so intense that it would have chased slumber from the eyelids of an older sufferer. She had cried herself to sleep, Thor’s presence giving the sense of protecting companionship the child feels in his mother’s nearness. The cool breath of the approaching twilight, the grateful shade, and Sabbath stillness did the rest.