now? And where was life? And where the love of chance bred in her by her father? The two years following Dirk’s birth were always somewhat vague in Selina’s mind, like a dream in which horror and happiness are inextricably blended. The boy was a plump hardy infant who employed himself cheerfully in whatever spot Selina happened to deposit him. He had his father’s blond exterior, his mother’s brunette vivacity. At two he was a child of average intelligence, sturdy physique, and marked good humour. He almost never cried. He was just twelve months old when Selina’s second child—a girl—was born dead. Twice during those two years Pervus fell victim to his so-called rheumatic attacks following the early spring planting when he was often forced to stand in water up to his ankles. He suffered intensely and during his illness was as tractable as a goaded bull. Selina understood why half of High Prairie was bent and twisted with rheumatism—why the little Dutch Reformed church on Sunday mornings resembled a shrine to which sick and crippled pilgrims creep. High Prairie was kind to the harried household. The farm women sent Dutch dainties. The men lent a hand in the fields, though they were hard put to it to tend their own crops at this season. The Widow Paarlenberg’s neat smart rig was frequently to be seen waiting under the willows in the DeJong yard. The Paarlenberg, still widow, still Paarlenberg, brought soups and chickens and cakes which never stuck in Selina’s throat because she refused to touch them. The Widow Paarlenberg was what is known as good-hearted. She was happiest when some one else was in trouble. Hearing of an illness, a catastrophe, “Og heden!” she would cry, and rush off to the scene with sustaining soup. She was the sort of lady bountiful who likes to see her beneficiaries benefit before her very eyes. If she brought them soup at ten in the morning she wanted to see that soup consumed. “Eat it all,” she would urge. “Take it now, while it is hot. See, you are looking better already. Just another spoonful.” In the DeJongs’ plight she found a grisly satisfaction, cloaked by commiseration. Selina, white and weak following her tragic second confinement, still found strength to refuse the widow’s sustaining potions. The widow, her silks making a gentle susurrus in the bare little bedroom, regarded Selina with eyes in which pity and triumph made horrid conflict. Selina’s eyes, enormous now in her white face, were twin pools of Peake pride. “It’s most kind of you, Mrs. Paarlenberg, but I don’t like soup.” “A whole chicken boiled in it.” “Especially chicken soup. Neither does Pervus. But I’m sure Mrs. Voorhees will enjoy it.” This being Pervus’s old housekeeper pressed now into temporary emergency service. It was easy to see why the DeJong house still was unpainted two years after Selina’s rosy plans began to form; why the fences still sagged, the wagon creaked, the single horse hauled the produce to market.