I knew what it was that she looked upon as she turned back toward that spot--it was one more low mound, simple, unpretentious, added to the many which had been placed there this last century and a half; one more little gray sandstone head-mark, cut simply with the name and dates of him who rested there, last in a long roll of our others. The slight figure in the dove-colored gown looked back lingeringly. It gave a new ache to my heart to see her there.
She did not notice me as I slipped down from my saddle and fastened my horse at the long rack. But when I called she turned and came to me with open arms.
"Jack!" she cried. "My son, how I have missed thee! Now thee has come back to thy mother." She put her forehead on my shoulder, but presently took up a mother's scrutiny. Her hand stroked my hair, my unshaven beard, took in each line of my face.
"Thee has a button from thy coat," she said, reprovingly. "And what is this scar on thy neck--thee did not tell me when thee wrote, Jack, what ails thee?" She looked at me closely. "Thee is changed. Thee is older--what has come to thee, my son?"
"Come," I said to her at length, and led her toward the steps of the little church.
Then I broke out bitterly and railed against our ill-fortune, and cursed at the man who would allow her to live in servants' quarters--indeed, railed at all of life.
"Thee must learn to subdue thyself, my son," she said. "It is only so that strength comes to us--when we bend the back to the furrow God sets for us. I am quite content in my little rooms. I have made them very clean; and I have with me a few things of my own--a few, not many."
"But your neighbors, mother, the Sheratons--"
"Oh, certainly, they asked me to live with them. But I was not moved to do that. You see, I know each rose bush and each apple tree on our old place. I did not like to leave them.
"Besides, as to the Sheratons, Jack," she began again--"I do not wish to say one word to hurt thy feelings, but Miss Grace--"
"Mr. Orme, the gentleman who once stopped with us a few days--"
"Oh, Orme! Is he here again? He was all through the West with me--I met him everywhere there. Now I meet him here!"
"He returned last summer, and for most of his time has been living at the Sheratons'. He and Colonel Sheraton agree very well. And he and Miss Grace--I do not like to say these things to thee, my son, but they also seem to agree."