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waving grain, green and velvety in spring, or golden like waves rippling in the autumn sunshine. But this day it was radiant with blue and white flowers and fairly took her breath away as it burst upon her sight.
    “Oh, look!” she said, interrupting him in one of his seminary tales. “Did you ever see such a sight!”
    They passed and stood before the miracle of bloom, half in awe.
    The daisies had crept thickly over the lovely roundness of the hill which rose straight up before their vision. They covered it completely as with a fine, white linen cloth, their golden centers making a shimmer like lights falling from above; and all through the daisies, in serried ranks, tall spikes of blue ruin had shot up in luxurious bloom, every little gray-green, rolled-up, leafy spike fluting out in the deep weird blue of its tubular corolla. They seemed like tall candles burning above the white cloth and lifting their blue flame to the blue sky above. It was a sight to take the breath away with beauty.
    Dana took off his hat and stood, looking up.
    “It is like a sacrament!” he said in the voice he used when he practiced pronouncing the benediction.
    “It is like—” Lynette’s voice had something hard and terrified in it. “It is like Satan !” she finished.
    “What on earth do you mean, Lynette?” said Dana in a voice of reproof. He never called her by her full name unless he was displeased with her.
    But she did not notice his displeasure. She was looking at the gorgeous display of beauty with sad eyes.
    “Lucifer, son of the morning!” she quoted. “It is terrible in its beauty to me. That blue ruin is a nettle, you know, viper’s weed. It chokes everything else out when it comes in. And daisies have the same nature, too! Come, I can’t bear it. It is too beautiful! It makes me think of sin getting into the world and spoiling all the good things of life! I can remember now how proud Grandfather was of his waving grain on Round Hill. And now blue ruin has spoiled all his work of the years!”
    “What nonsense!” said Dana, speaking haughtily, harshly. “What utter bosh! That’s some more of that ignorant little college, teaching you fanciful things like that! I really shall have to take you in hand I see. That belongs to the phraseology of a notorious class of ignorant literalists who think they know it all and are making themselves ridiculous. Really, Lynette, I supposed you had more sense. We’ll take a week off and sit down while I give you a little of the exegesis we had in class. A good dose of notes out of my class notebooks will get that folly out of you. Meantime, oblige me by leaving his majesty the devil out of the conversation.” He finished half lightly, for glancing down he saw that her eyes were full of tears.
    “There, Lynn, don’t take things too seriously,” he coaxed, snatching her hand and drawing it within his arm. “You are tired. I let you walk too far. We’ll have the car tomorrow. Come forget it. Everything will come all right and you’ll get adjusted to things. You are not to blame; it’s just the old-fashioned ideas you have been taught, but I’ll change all that. I’ll tell you all the modern ways. You’re an unusually bright woman, Lynn, and must understand before you can follow. Most women don’t bother themselves at all about theology, but you have a mind that is worthy of being taught. It is a great pity that you couldn’t have had a worthwhile college. I’d have liked to have had you study theology with some of my professors in the seminary. You certainly would have enjoyed it. They were keen men, broad-minded, with a vision of the future. They lost no time in sweeping the cobwebs of the ages out of my brain. I declare, I believe you could even have enjoyed Greek and Hebrew! Come, Lynn, be yourself and smile. It isn’t like you to be in the sulks.”
    Lynette looked up almost sadly. She wondered what he would think if she were to tell him? But this was no time to