In this lovely valley, at the close of a long, odorous, sun-drenched day in early May, the sacred silence was broken by a raucous blast from that most unmusical of instruments, a tin dinner horn. It was blown by a bare-legged country boy who seemed to take delight in this profanation. By his side, in the vine-clad porch of the white farm-house stood a woman who shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked toward a vague object in a distant meadow. She was no longer young, but had exchanged the exquisite beauty of youth for the finer and more impressive beauty of maturity. As the light of the setting sun fell full upon her face it seemed almost transparent, and even the unobserving must have perceived that some deep experience of the sadness of life had added to her character an indescribable charm. "Thee will have to go and call him, Stephen, for I think he has fallen into another trance," the woman said, in a low voice in which there was not a trace of impatience, although the evening meal was waiting and the pressing work of the household had been long delayed. The child threw down his dinner horn, whistled to his dog and started. Springing up from where he had been watching every expression of his master's face, the shaggy collie bounded around him as he moved across the lawn, while the woman watched them with a proud and happy smile. They had scarcely entered the long lane leading to the pasture, when a woodchuck shambled out of the corner of the fence and ran lumbering into his burrow. Rushing excitedly after him the child clapped his hands and shouted: "Dig him out! Dig him out, Shep!" Tearing up the ground with his paws and thrusting his head down into the subterranean chamber, the obedient collie yelped and whined. Then backing out and plunging in once more, he yelped and whined again. The hole was too deep or the time too short and the boy became discouraged. Moving reluctantly away he chidingly summoned his companion to follow him. The dog, humiliated by his failure, obeyed, and sheepishly licked his mouth with his long, red tongue.