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admiration in his eyes. He was an old fat man, coarse and ignorant, but even so it was worth taking his look which lingered a moment upon her face. Everything was worth having, every least bit of love, all admiration. She wanted flowers strewn to walk upon. She turned from one to the other, laughing, greeting, taking everything. It was all lovely. She lavished her promises richly. “Yes, of course I’ll come!” “Oh, picnics are fun—I’ll make a chocolate cake—I make grand cake!” She forgot her mother and Francis who was pulling them impatiently along. “Gee, I’m starved, Moms,” he was muttering behind his grave grown-up face. “Church always makes me hungry—” She forgot Rose stealing softly along behind them. She was full of herself, a queen returned to her kingdom, a woman returned lovely and young.
    For it was excitement to see dreams and yearnings even in old faces. She knew she made them remember again, love again, because she was so living and so young. The few young people were timid of her, she was so confident and so gay. There was Netta Weeks, who hadn’t gone to college after all. “Father says he can’t spend the money now until the factory pays,” Netta had said everywhere. Now she clutched at Joan, and whispered; “I want to see you—I want to have a real old-fashioned talk like we used to have—” “Of course, Netta,” Joan answered quickly. Poor Netta—she understood her—she understood everybody—she pitied them all—she was full of richness for them all. A young man nearby looked at her covertly, a tall stolid young farmer, and instantly she knew it, though she did not look at him, for he was a stranger. But she lingered a moment, letting him look at her.
    So at last they came out into the sunshine of the cloudless day and at once Francis broke away and strode whistling across the grass. He was glad to be out of the church. No use remembering things. Sometimes in the sunshine like this he felt maybe he had imagined he had seen the hanging Negro, or made it up from talk he heard around South End. The people talked about it still, some, on lazy afternoons around the streets there. But at night he knew he had seen.
    “Hi there,” he shouted loudly to a boy across the street. “Meet you this afternoon!”
    “I’ll go along and start the meat,” her mother said.
    “I’m coming,” Joan answered. She looked about her. Everyone was scattering now, suddenly hungry and remembering their Sunday dinners.
    “I’ll wait for Father,” said Rose.
    “Then I’ll go and help Mother,” she replied.
    But there was one more person to come out of the church. It was Martin Bradley. He came gracefully down the steps, his music rolled under his arm. He always waited and came out alone. Now he lifted his hat easily. “How do you do, Miss Richards?” he said. “It is nice to have you home—I hope, to stay?”
    She was surprised. He had never spoken to her so directly before and never had he called her Miss Richards. She looked into his melancholy brown eyes. He was a little shorter than she, a very little—no, they were the same height. “Why—I don’t know—for a while, anyway,” she stammered, suddenly taken aback. He lifted his hat again and she saw his smooth dark hair, white at the sides. He smiled slightly and pleasantly, but only with his lips, and walked away. She strolled smiling across the lawn to the manse. It was strange how when one was grown up, people seemed different. She had known Martin for years, on Sundays a part of the organ, on weekdays a face in the village. Now suddenly he took on a shape for himself; he was even rather handsome in a quiet secret oldish way.
    But what his shape was she did not know and the little wonder she had now faded, at least for the moment. It was driven away by the warm noon, by the peace of the shadowy lawn, by the roses hung upon the porch and now by the smell of broiling steak and spiced apple pie. She ran up the steps and into