The sun disappeared behind the mill, and a whip-poor-will called suddenly from a maple near the house. Rob, the collie, gave an uneasy whine, and coming in, poked his cold nose into Margaret’s hand, as if impatient at her revery. She patted him, went to the table, lighted the lamp, and was arranging the backgammon-board just as her father’s step sounded on the piazza. “What! all alone, daughter? This seems like old times,” he said, as he sat down to his game. “So the lovers haven’t come back yet, eh? How we miss Waldsen!” Looking up, expecting a reply, he saw that Margaret was apparently absorbed in an intricate move. V It was a good season. The days were bright, the nights brought plentiful showers, everything throve at the fruit farm, and at midsummer Ezra Tolford found that he had outdone his best expectations. Other things prospered besides the products of the soil. Andrea was her plump, rosy self again, radiant with happiness and energy. The life she led was that for which she was born, the life that countless generations of her kindred had lived before her. She loved the daily round of labour, loved to cook, to keep the house neat. She loved the breath of the rich earth, when the plough rent the furrows. She loved the simple gossip of the neighbours, who ran in to consult with bated breath the wearing possibilities of a dress pattern or a new stitch in knitting. She had no doubts or fears, but was contented. When she first met Gurth, his world seemed so far from hers, so much above and apart, that she listened to all he said with silent acquiescence, yielding always to his judgment, and never presuming to discuss matters of which she could have no knowledge, all the while adoring him with the idealizing passion of first love. Now this was changed; he was no longer a knight from dreamland, but a fellow-worker, with whom she might discuss plans into which she had a far more practical insight than he. She loved him as devotedly, but on a rational plane. As for Gurth, did he like this reversal? He was often worried by his own state of mind. Physically he was well, and, though rather thin, his face wore a healthy sun bronze. All his plans were going forward smoothly, the Hill Farm was nearly ready for its autumn planting of small fruits, and there would be money enough left over to bridge the way for the little household, until the soil yielded its crops,—yet he was not wholly contented. Andrea’s complete satisfaction and identification with her work seemed a reproach to him. Was this vigorous woman the same being as the girl who a year before stood blushing and silent, or else was moved to tears when he read aloud or played his violin to her? She seemed no longer to need protection, but rather to protect him.