A FARM-HOUSE STORY. 119 



was happy in that growing love, and watched them with 

 eyes full of tears at the thought that ere long the old man 

 must go down to silence, and the boy live on alone. 



Sometimes they would walk together, and sit down un- 

 der a tree on the river bank and talk. No one knew 

 what they talked of in such moments, but doubtless the 

 grandfather had visions of the world he was entering, and 

 communicated them to the boy. And so years traveled 

 along, and they all grew older together, and when once in 

 a while Walter came back, the house was happy. 



But a change came. The cheek of Stephen Brand grew 

 paler and paler as he grew more feeble, and he felt that 

 the hour was approaching when he must go away by the 

 dark road ; and the boy's life was so knitted to that of his 

 grandfather, that he too seemed visibly to fail from day 

 to day. It was a curious circumstance, and did not fail 

 to attract the attention of the family and the neighbor- 

 hood, and wise old women prophesied that the boy would 

 not outlive the old man. 



And now the two talked constantly and steadily from 

 morning till night and late into the night. Sometimes 

 they were seated by the fire in the old hearth, sometimes 

 in the large chairs facing each other that stood in Stephen's 

 room, and as the spring advanced they sat sometimes 

 under the large elm that was near the well, and oftener 

 still on the river bank by the spring. And their conver- 

 sation was no secret, but was of the high and blessed 

 promises for the future, of the light that shone all along 

 that otherwise dark sad road they were traveling. Alice 

 wept in secret every day, but never let them see her tears. 

 She went cheerfully about her household work, and in the 

 dull routine of a farmer's life sought to forget the bitter- 

 ness of the coming separation. 



