soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he
could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home.

The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted
firs, which she had named "the old bent beggarmen," were visible in the
twilight. Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling
that they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to her,
and the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they bounded her
sight.

"If the sheep thrive," she ventured to remark, so that the comforting old
themes might be kept up.

"That's the particular 'if!'" said Robert, signifying something that had
to be leaped over.

Master Gammon performed the feat with agility.

"Sheep never was heartier," he pronounced emphatically.

"Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?"

To this the veteran's tardy answer was: "More fools 'n one about, I
reckon"; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence.

"And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?" said Rhoda.

A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid the
soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way of precluding
a response from him; but on this occasion his honest deliberation bore