Chapter III

APPLE-BLOSSOM LAND

Several days had passed since gentle William Pryor had at last found
rest. Yorkburg recovering from its shock, took up once more the placid
movement of its life.

Mary Cary opened her shutters and with hands on the window-sill
leaned out and took a deep breath, then she laughed and nodded her
head. "Good-morning sun," she said, "good-morning birds, good-morning
everything!" Her eyes swept the scene before her, adsorbed greedily
its every detail, then rested on the orchard to the right.

"Oh, you beautiful apple blossoms! You beautiful, beautiful apple
blossoms!" She threw them a kiss. "And to think you are mine--mine!"

In her voice was a quivering little catch, and presently she dropped on
her knees by the open window and rested her arms on the sill. Again her
eyes swept sky and field, now glancing at the lawn of velvet green, now
at the upturned earth on the left, the or hard on the right, the thread
of water in the distance winding lazily in and out at the foot of low
hills, and now at the sun, well up from the soft dawning of another day,
and suddenly she stretched out her arms.

"God," she said, "God, I am so glad--so glad!"

For some minutes she knelt, her chin in the palms of her hands, her gaze
wandering down the road to the little town less than a mile away, and