Already Nature stretched busy hands out of the shadows of the great park, and with manifold browns and greens softened the newness and crudeness of the little homestead enshrined at its heart. The clearing teemed with fresh life. The charred rails of the meadow fence were overgrown with tangles of wild blackberry and raspberry, with which the stiff foliage of the Washington holly disputed room. Ferns, springing from the ashes of the fire, reached a height of eight and ten feet and opened umbrella fronds. At the cottage sweetbrier and wild honeysuckle interlaced with the tendrils of a Virginia creeper and climbed to the eaves; maidenhair unfolded pale canopies over the shallow boxes on the edge of the balcony, where were planted sweet peas, and a syringa, supported by a pillar, offered its branches to trellis the insistent hopvine, which dropped from the gable a misty curtain of green. Backward, towards the small stable, and the huge hayrick thatched with lichened bark, a wild cherry held its own among thrifty young orchard trees, and vigorous shoots of alder and maple pushed up hedge-wise along the corral. Everywhere Nature had been encouraged to retouch, and eradicate and bring to a finish the general plan. Still, had you approached the clearing that September afternoon,—however wayworn, however surprised, charmed,—you must have allowed your glance to rest longest on the bit of life in the landscape. The teacher had laid aside her pruning shears, and taking a rake from the wall, proceeded to draw weeds and clippings into a neat hummock. Her simple gown of brown barred gingham, catching a breath of wind, stirred gauzily. Upon her head the broad sun-hat with muslin bow and strings became a picture hat, quaint, pleasing. Still, had you once known her, you must have noticed that her figure had lost a little of its roundness; the skin its old transparency and velvet smoothness; shadows lurked under her brave eyes, and, sometimes, her sweet and mirth-provoking mouth stiffened into a patient self-suppression. She stopped at length to rest, leaning on the gate, and looked up the trail, which began a level stretch through pale alders, dipped to a hollow and rose over a knob where, set like a flaring torch, a first changing maple illumined the way, and was lost to reappear briefly on higher ground. It was there on the hillside she presently discovered Mose. He came with his swift swinging stride his gun on his shoulder, a brace of birds in his hand, and was hidden directly in foliage. She waited, and when he came over the lower knoll, under the flaming maple, she drew the wooden pin and threw the gate open. "Grouse, Mose?" she asked with evident interest. "What beauties."