school hour her tall lithe figure, clad in gray hood and cloak,
appeared at last walking along this path, stepping over or passing
around the fallen boughs. She was pale and thin, but the sweet warm
womanliness of her, if possible, lovelier. There was a look of
religious gratitude in the eyes, but about her mouth new happiness.

Her duties were done earlier than usual that afternoon, for not
much could be accomplished on this first day of reassembling the
children. They were gone; and she stood on the steps of the school-
house, facing toward a gray field on a distant hillside, which
caught the faint sunshine. It drew her irresistibly in heart and
foot, and she set out toward it.

The day was one of those on which the seasons meet. Strips of snow
ermined the field; but on the stumps, wandering and warbling before
Gabriella as she advanced, were bluebirds, those wings of the sky,
those breasts of earth. She reached the spot she was seeking, and
paused. There it was--the whole pitiful scene! His hemp brake; the
charred rind of a stump where he had kindled a fire to warm his
hands; the remnant of the shock fallen over and left unfinished
that last afternoon; trailing across his brake a handful of hemp
partly broken out.

She surveyed it all with wistful tenderness. Then she looked away
to the house. She could see the window of his room at which she had
sat how many days, gazing out toward this field! On his bed in that
room he was now stretched weak and white, but struggling back into
health.

She came closer and gazed down at his frozen boot prints. How near