Will saw the old man's head at the open window, but no
one else, though he
looked eagerly for Agnes as he walked up the familiar path. There
stood the great oak under whose shade he had grown to be a man.
How close the great tree seemed to stand to his heart, some way!
As the wind stirred in the leaves, it was like a rustle of greeting.
In that low old house they had all lived, and his mother had toiled
for thirty years. A sort of prison after all. There they were all born,
and there his father and his little sister had died. And then it had
passed into old Kinney's hands.
Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness in his limbs,
and he made a pretense of stopping to look at a flowerbed
containing nothing but weeds. After seven years of separation he
was about to face once more the woman whose life came so near
being a part of his- Agnes, now a wife and a mother.
How would she look? Would her face have that oldtime peachy
bloom, her mouth that peculiar beautiful curve? She was large and
fair, he recalled, hair yellow and shining, eyes blue-He roused
himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. He composed
himself by looking around again.
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