She was happy, too; he could hear her occasional laughter and the murmur of her voice as she swung in the hammock at the corner of the house with Dr. Harpe. On his right, he heard the unceasing click of Grandmother Kunkel's needles as they flew in and out upon the top row of the woollen stocking that was never done. It was a pleasing domestic scene and he opened his eyes lazily to enjoy it. They sought the hammock and their listlessness was gradually replaced by an intentness of gaze which became a stare. "Grandmother," he said after a time, and he noticed that her mouth was a tight pucker of displeasure, though she seemed to have eyes only for her work. "You remember our conversation some time ago--have you changed your opinion in regard to the person we discussed?" In the look she flashed at him he read not only the answer to his question but something of the fierce emotion which was finding vent in her flying needles. "I haven't!" she snapped. "You truly believe that her influence over Augusta is not good?" She leaned toward him in quiet intensity-- "Believe it? I _know_ it! I've been prayin' that you might see it yourself before it is too late." "Too late? What do you mean?" "Just what I say." Her old chin trembled. "Before Augusta has lost every spark of affection for you and me--before I am sent away." He looked at her incredulously. "You don't mean that?" She nodded. "I've been warned already. I'm in Dr. Harpe's way; she knows what I think of her, and she'd rather have some stranger here." "You amaze me. Does she dominate Augusta to such an extent as that!" His mind ran back over the events of the past few weeks and he could see that those occasions from which Dr. Harpe had been excluded had seemed flat, stale, footless to Augusta. She had been absent-minded, preoccupied, even openly bored. He recalled the fact now that it was only at this woman's coming that animation had returned and that she had hung absorbed, fascinated upon her words. She became alive in her presence as though she drew her very vitality from this stronger-willed woman. "I've noticed a change--but I thought it was nerves--the altitude, perhaps--and I've intended taking her with me on my next trip East." "She wouldn't go." "I can't believe that." "Ask her," was the grim reply. "She obeyed me in that other matter," Symes argued. "Because she was _allowed_ to do so." "I'm going to stop this intimacy; I'm tired of her interference--tired of seeing her around--tired of boarding her, as a matter of fact, and I _will_ end it." He spoke in intense exasperation. "Look out, Andy P., you'll make a mistake if you try in that way. You might have done it in the beginnin' or when I first warned you; but Augusta's like putty in her hands now. She don't seem to have any will of her own or gratitude--or affection. I'm tellin' you straight, Andy P." Symes considered. "There is a way, if I could bring myself to do it." "What's that?"