Aunt Ruth watched them far down the road, then she went into the house with a slow step and a heavy heart. She wiped away the tears as she gathered up Marian's woody treasures that she had forgotten—lichens, moss twigs, and purple berries. The house was empty and dull. The bright young creature who had filled it with an atmosphere of warmth and gladness was gone. How grim and desolate it seemed! For two months Aunt Ruth had lived a charmed life. Marian, the daughter of her favorite niece, whom she loved as her own child, had come from her far city home for a brief visit—to honor one whom her mother prized so highly. Her stay was protracted far beyond what duty required, though. The girl enjoyed the free, unconventional life, the novel experiences, and the almost idolatrous love bestowed upon her. It was hard to say which was most delighted with the other. The younger one painted scenes of the gay, busy world, that seemed to the elder, hard-worked woman like the tales of Aladdin. Then she, in turn, in quaint speech, seasoned with wit, poured into the young ears the privations and romances of frontier life, as well as the love tales of long ago, which were far more delightful than one could find in a book, because they had been lived out before Aunt Ruth's eyes. She knew whether the fine gold of the marriage day had become dim; what they did, and how they lived, and so on to the very last chapter. With graphic words she made them live again for her eager listener—a long line of ancestors—sketching her characters with no mean skill, her charitable nature hiding their faults behind their graces, so that they were most fascinating as heroes and heroines. In short, Aunt Ruth was to Marion a delightful old book, full of wisdom and strong sweetness. And while Marian was to her aunt a revelation of grace and loveliness, she was besides gifted with an active brain, and was the very soul of truth and candor, so that she seemed to the New England woman like a breath of air fresh from the old Massachusetts hills. Aunt Ruth always disparaged the East in contrast with the West when she re-visited it, and yet she loved its rocky hills with all her heart. At the same time, anything or anybody of Eastern make or birth, was held up to Western people as a model of all excellence.