Reuben mused in silence upon the chances which had led him so far away from this drowsy, unfruitful life, and smiled as he found himself wondering if it would be in the least possible for him to return to it. No--no one ever did return. The bright boys, the restless boys, the boys of energy, of ambition, of yearning for culture or conquest or the mere sensation of living where it was really life--all went away, leaving none but the Ezras behind. Some succeeded; some failed; but none of them ever came back. And the Ezras who remained on the farms--they seemed to shut and bolt the doors of their minds against all idea of making their own lot less sterile and barren and uninviting. The mere mental necessity for a great contrast brought up suddenly in Reuben’s thoughts a picture of the drawing-room in the home of the Minsters. It seemed as if the whole vast swing of the mind’s pendulum separated that luxurious abode of cultured wealth from this dingy and barren farmhouse room. And he, who had been born and reared in this latter, now found himself at a loss how to spend so much as a single evening in its environment, so completely had familiarity with the other remoulded and changed his habits, his point of view, his very character. Curious slaves of habit--creatures of their surroundings--men were! A loud, peremptory knocking at the door aroused Reuben abruptly from his revery, and Ezra, too, opened his eyes with a start, and sitting upright rubbed them confusedly. “Now I think of it, I heard a sleigh stop,” said Reuben, rising. “It can’t be the doctor this time of night, can it?” “It ’ud be jest like him,” commented Ezra, captiously. “He’s a great hand to keep dropping in, sort of casual-like, when there’s sickness in the house. It all goes down in his bill.” The farmer brother had also risen, and now, lamp in hand, walked heavily in his stocking feet to the door, and opened it half way. Some indistinct words passed, and then, shading the flickering flame with his huge hairy hand, Ezra turned his head. “Somebody to see you, Rube,” he said. On second thought he added to the visitor in a tone of formal politeness: “Won’t you step in, ma’am?” Jessica Lawton almost pushed her host aside in her impulsive response to his invitation. But when she had crossed the threshold the sudden change into a heated atmosphere seemed to go to her brain like chloroform. She stood silent, staring at Reuben, with parted lips and hands nervously twitching. Even as he, in his complete surprise, recognized his visitor, she trembled violently from head to foot, made a forward step, tottered, and fell inertly into Ezra’s big, protecting arm.