At this point Mrs. Bradford made an effort to turn the conversation into other channels; for friendly as she always was with her neighbours of all degrees, she never allowed unkind gossip in her house, and only a newcomer would have ventured upon it. As it was, the loquacious one felt the rebuke in the air, and made hasty adieus on the plea of having to set bread, leaving the rest to talk to their host of themselves, their pleasure at his return, and the local interests of Pine Ridge. When they had all gone, Horace locked the back door, after filling an old yellow and bronze glazed pitcher, which bric-à-brac hunters would have struggled for, at the well, as he had done every night during his boyhood, he left it on the hall table, and going out the front way to the garden, walked up and down the long straight walk, between the sweet peas and rose bushes, for more than an hour, until, having fought to no conclusion the battle into which a new foe had entered, he returned to the house and went noiselessly to his room. Here, in place of the confusion he had left, quiet and order reigned. All his clothes were laid away in their old places. He had but to reach his hand inside the closet, the door of which hesitated before opening in its familiar way, to find his night gear; the sheets were turned down at the exact angle, and the pillows arranged one crosswise, one upright, as he liked them,--his mother's remembering touch was upon everything. He undressed without striking a light, and lay down, only to look wakefully out at the dark lattice of tree branches against the moonlit sky. Presently a step sounded on the stairs and paused at his partly open door. He raised himself on his elbow, and peering through the crack saw his mother standing there in night-dress and short sack, shading the candle with her hand as she used when he was a little chap, to make sure that he was safe asleep and had not perhaps crept out the window to go coon hunting with the bigger boys,--a proceeding his father always winked at, but which she feared would lead him to overdo and get a fever. "I'm here, mother," he said cheerfully. "Are you quite comfortable, Horace? Is there nothing that you want?" He hesitated a moment, and then said frankly, "Yes and no, mother." "Is it anything that I can do for you?" she asked, coming into the room and smoothing his hair as she spoke. "Ah, that is the _no_ of it, and the hard part," he answered, capturing the hand and holding it tight between his own. "And the hard part for your old mother too, when the one thing comes that she cannot give or do. Whatever it is, don't shut me out from it, Horace,--that is, unless you must," and tucking the light summer quilt in Under the pillow by one of his hands, she kissed his forehead and went away.