The Circle of Industry had been minus an important member that afternoon. The small woman in black was there, and a reduced contingent of such auxiliary members as still remained in the wilds, but the chief director and center of affairs, Miss Carroway, was absent. She had set out immediately after luncheon, and Mrs. Kitcher had for once enjoyed the privilege of sowing discord, shedding gloom and retailing dark hints, unopposed and undismayed. Her opponent, for the time at least, had abandoned the field. Miss Carroway had set out quietly enough, taking the path around the lake that on the other side joined the trail which led to the Deane camp. It was a rare afternoon, and the old lady, carefully dressed, primly curled, and with a bit of knitting in her hand, sauntered leisurely through the sunlit woods toward the West Branch. She was a peaceful note in the picture as she passed among the tall spruces, or paused for a moment amid a little grove of maples that were turning red and gold, some of the leaves drifting to her feet. Perhaps she reflected that for them, as for her, the summer time was over--that their day of usefulness was nearly ended. Perhaps she recalled the days not long ago when the leaves had been fresh and fair with youth, and it may be that the thought brought back her own youth, when she had been a girl, climbing the hills back of Haverford--when there had been young men who had thought her as fresh and fair, and one who because of a misunderstanding had gone away to war without a good-bye, and had died at Wilson's Creek with a bullet through her picture on his heart. As she lingered here and there in the light of these pleasant places, it would have been an easy task to reconstruct in that placid, faded face the beauty of forty years ago, to see in her again the strong, handsome girl who had put aside her own heritage of youth and motherhood to carry the burdens of an invalid sister, to adopt, finally, as her own, the last feeble, motherless infant, to devote her years and strength to him, to guide him step by step to a place of honor among his fellow-men. Seeing her now, and knowing these things, it was not hard to accord her a former beauty--it was not difficult even to declare her beautiful still--for something of it all had come back, something of the old romance, of awakened purpose and the tender interest of love. Where the trail crossed the Au Sable Falls, she paused and surveyed the place with approval. "That would be a nice place for a weddin'," she reflected aloud. "Charlie used to say a piece at school about 'The groves was God's first temples,' an' this makes me think of it." Then she forgot her reflections, for a little way beyond the falls, assorting something from a basket, was the object of her visit, Constance Deane. She had spread some specimens on the grass and was comparing them with the pictures in the book beside her. As Miss Carroway approached, she greeted her cordially.