Lynn was glad when the breakfast was over. He did not like his grandmother in this mood nearly so well as he had liked her in the kindly responsive one of the night before; and yet, although he knew her but slightly, he felt sure that this mood was more natural, or, at all events, more habitual, to her, than the other. It was most likely this instinctive feeling which had unconsciously kept him--during the talk with her on the previous day--from speaking of the beautiful girl whom he had seen. He now felt more distinctly, though still without knowing why, that he did not wish to hear his grandmother speak of her or of her environment, as he now knew that the old lady would speak. He already understood enough, remembering the kind things which the doctor's lady had told him, to anticipate the different presentation of the widow Wendall and her family that his grandmother would certainly make. He left her as soon as he could, offering his engagement with Dr. Alexander as a ready excuse. Passing out into the quiet, empty big road, he walked along under the old locust trees which lined one side of the way. The locusts were flowering, and the long clusters of pure white flowers, swinging among the dull gray-green of the feathery foliage, filled the fresh air of the May morning with wholesome sweetness. The shrubs in the yards, bordering the length of the big road with the vivid verdure of new leaves, were also in bloom. The young man smelled the honeysuckle blossoming thick over the sick man's window, but he did not look that way. He looked, naturally enough, in the opposite direction, where the silver poplars stood, since the interests and the sympathies of youth must always lie on the other side of life's big road, away from all affliction and pain. He was not sorry to find that the doctor had gone into the country in answer to an urgent call, and that the visit to the invalid consequently must be postponed. He was sorry, however, to see the white curtain of the house behind the poplars hanging precisely as it had hung on the previous day; and, although he walked to the top of the hill beyond the house and, turning, strolled slowly back again in front of the window, he had no second glimpse of Doris. Thus idly strolling, he went along the big road, stopping now and then to lean over a fence to look at the hyacinths and tulips, which were at their sweetest and brightest in most of the front yards; or to linger beside the rosy clover fields to drink in the fragrance and to watch the vernal happiness of the birds. He paused occasionally to lift his hat smilingly to the friendly faces which smiled at him from the vine-wreathed windows and the wide-open doors; but, loiter as he might, he saw nothing more of the girl of whom he was thinking and hoping to meet, and although he delayed his return as long as he could, he was still back at his grandmother's house all too soon.