again,--"and I promise you I'll give my whole mind to it! Get me some of
that hawthorn bloom yonder, and let's go back."




IV

AND BRING DOWN THE REMAINDER


This "hill path" was a narrowed continuance of the street, that led
gradually down along the hill's steep face to reach the town and the
river meadows. Godfrey, halting before Ruth and her brother, watched the
blooming hawthorn, over there, bend and shake and straighten and bend
again, above Arthur's unseen hands. Then, glancing furtively back toward
Mrs. Morris, he muttered to Ruth, while Leonard gravely looked out
across the landscape, "I live and learn."

"So we learn to live," was Ruth's playful reply. To her it was painfully
clear that Mrs. Morris, very sweetly no doubt, had eluded Godfrey's
endeavors to inform her of anything not to his brother's unqualified
praise. In the Bylow Hill group, Ruth had a way of smiling abstractedly,
which was very dear to Godfrey even when it meant he had best say no
more; and this smile had just said this to him when Isabel and Arthur
came into view again. As the two and the three drifted toward each
other, Ruth let Leonard outstep her, and joined Godfrey with a light in
her face that quickened his pulse.

After a word or two of slight import she said, as they slowly walked,