the feeling of his parents toward him. His expulsion from college
and their belief that he was a failure; the fact that for three
years repairs had been neglected and improvements allowed to wait,
in order that all possible revenues might be collected for him;
even these caused them less acute distress than the fear that as a
consequence they should now be forced so late in life to make that
mournful pilgrimage into strange regions. David was saddened to
think that ever at his father's side sat his mother, irritating him
by dropping all day into his ear the half idle, half intentional
words which are the water that wears out the rock.

The young man walked in a straight line toward the house,
determined to ascertain the reason of this last visit, and to have
out the long-awaited talk with his father. He reached the yard
gate, then paused and wheeled abruptly toward the barn.

"Not to-day," he said, thinking of Gabriella and of his coming
visit to her now but a few hours off. "To-morrow! Day after to-
morrow! Any time after this! But no quarrels to-day!" and his face
softened.

Before the barn door, where the snow had been tramped down by the
stock and seeds of grain lay scattered, he flushed a flock of
little birds, nearly all strangers to each other. Some from the
trees about the yard; some from the thickets, fences, and fields
farther away. As he threw open the barn doors, a few more, shyer
still, darted swiftly into hiding. He heard the quick heavy flap of
wings on the joists of the oats loft overhead, and a hawk swooped
out the back door and sailed low away.