Chauncey took these neighborly warnings with good-humored indifference. “I haven't seen no signs of his doin' any harm,” he said. “Anybody's at liberty to walk in the fields if there ain't a 'No Trespass' posted. I rather guess he makes his bed among the corn stouks. I see prints of someone's feet, goin' and comin'.” Mrs. Bogardus was more herself in those days than she had been at any time since the great North-western wilderness sent her its second message of fear. Old memories were losing their sting. She could bear to review her decision with a certain shrinking hardihood. Had the choice been given her to repeat, her action had been the same. In so far as she had perjured herself for the sake of peace in the family, she owned the sacrifice was vain; but her own personality was the true reason for what she had done. She was free in her unimpeachable widowhood--a mother who had never been at heart a wife. She feared no ghosts this keen autumn weather, at the summit of her conscious powers. Her dark eye unsheathed its glance of authority. It was an eye that went everywhere, and everywhere was met with signs that praised its oversight. Here was an out-worn inheritance which one woman, in less than a third of her lifetime, had developed into a competence for her son. He could afford to dream dreams of beneficence with his mother to make them good. Yes, he needed her still. His child was in her keeping; and, though brief the lease, that trust was no accident. It was the surest proof he could have given her of his vital allegiance. In the step which Paul and Moya were taking, she saw the first promise of that wisdom she had despaired of in her son. In the course of years he would understand her. And Christine? She rested bitterly secure in her daughter's inevitable physical need of her. Christine was a born parasite. She had no true pride; she was capable merely of pique which would wear itself out and pass into other forms of selfishness. This woman had been governed all her life by a habit of decision, and a strong personality rooted in the powers of nature. Therefore she was seldom mistaken in her conclusions when they dealt with material results. Occasionally she left out the spirit; but the spirit leaves out no one.