sat and watched the maple cast its glory, and did
not bother much with his simple meals. The Wise
house was erected on three terraces. Always through
the dry summer the grass was burned to an ugly
negation of color. Later, when rain came, the grass
was a brilliant green, patched with rosy sorrel and
golden stars of arnica. Then later still came the
diamond brilliance of the frost. So dry were the
terraces in summer-time that no flowers would
flourish. When Daniel's mother had come to the
house as a bride she had planted under a window a
blush-rose bush, but always the blush-roses were
few and covered with insects. It was not until the
autumn, when it was time for the flowers to die, that
the sorrel blessing of waste lands flushed rosily and
the arnica showed its stars of slender threads of
gold, and there might even be a slight glimpse of
purple aster and a dusty spray or two of goldenrod.
Then Daniel did not shrink from the sight of the
terraces. In summer-time the awful negative glare
of them under the afternoon sun maddened him.

In winter he often visited his brother John in
the village. He was very fond of John, and John's
wife, and their only daughter, Dora. When John
died, and later his wife, he would have gone to live
with Dora, but she married. Then her husband also
died, and Dora took up dressmaking, supporting
herself and her delicate little girl-baby. Daniel
adored this child. She had been named for him,