The Hale and Mostyn houses were of the same colonial type, and situated about half a mile apart, the one on the valley road that ran to Bridgeton, and the other on a parallel road that lay on the north side of Sunset Hill. The land holdings of each ran up the hill until merely a party fence in a wooded plateau at the top separated them. The houses were pleasantly located, but the view in front of each ran only the length of the village street, while the steep hill in the back shut off the east and west horizon respectively. The morning after the first unexpected frost, John Hale had gone to the extreme boundary of his land on the hilltop to see to some fencing that the farmer said must be renewed. As he left the roadside for the rolling ground, a change came over him; as he began to ascend, his head grew clearer and his gait more elastic; he threw back his shoulders and a feeling of exhilaration possessed him such as he had not known for years. A very short distance separated the heavy air of the river valley from the fresh breath of the hills swept by winds from across salt water, and he began to wonder why any one owning so much land should have literally turned his back upon the hill country as his grandfather had done. Then he began to realize that he, also, had his point of view limited by mere tradition. Coming out from the shelter of low-growing trees, the beauty of both day and scene burst upon him; he had almost forgotten how glorious the world is when seen from the hilltop on a ripe September morning. He straightway forgot the broken fences, forgot the conditions of his mother’s will, forgot that he was nearing threescore. He felt himself a young man again with love walking by his side and ambition before him, and immediately his steps turned towards a well-hedged lane or pent-road that began nowhere in particular, crossed the hilltop at an angle and joined the upper road near his neighbour’s garden, for all at once his new-born sense of youth and freedom led him as directly towards Jane Mostyn, as it had that September morning when they had journeyed on the waterways of Venice. Surely, yes, it was the anniversary of that meeting, the thirtieth; how could such things be? He would forget the between time; it would not be difficult; already it seemed like some dark dream that had suddenly lifted. Would Jane Mostyn feel the same? He would go and ask her. A covey of quail rose from the edge of a field of buckwheat and passed almost above his head with a whistling flight. How long had it been since he had gone to the woods with dog and gun? Now for the first time in his life he realized his mother’s affection as a sort of fetter that had bound his faculties until they had grown numb.