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“Have you got any notion what it’s best to do, sir?” he began boldly; then, finding that his father did not answer, he turned to look at him, and found that the drawn face was set in silent despair.

“I’ve always been forehanded; I never was caught so unprepared before,” he faltered. “‘T has been my way, as you know, to think out things beforehand, but it come to the very last before I could give it up ’bout your mother’s gettin’ better; an’ when I did give up, ‘t wa’n’t so I could think o’ anything. An’ here’s your aunts got their families dependin’ on ’em, and wantin’ to git away soon as may be. I don’t know which way to look.”

“Marilla and I should be thankful if you’d come and stop ‘long of us this winter”–the younger man began, eagerly.

“No, no!” said his father sternly. “I ain’t goin’ to live in the chimbly-corner of another man’s house. I ain’t but a little past sixty-seven. I’ve got to stand in my lot an’ place. ‘T wouldn’t be neither your house nor mine, William,” he said, in a softer tone. “You’re a good son; your mother always said you was a good son.”

Israel Haydon’s voice broke, and William Haydon’s eyes filled with tears, and they plodded along together in the soft spring grass.

“I’ve gone over everything I wish I could forget–all the bothering tricks I played her, ‘way back when I was a boy,” said the young man, with great feeling. “I declare, I don’t know what to do, I miss her so.”

“You was an only child,” said the father solemnly; “we done the best we could by ye. She often said you was a good son, and she wa’n’t surprised to see ye prosper. An’ about Marilly, ‘long at the first, when you was courtin’ her, ‘t was only that poor mother thought nobody wa’n’t quite good enough for her boy. She come to set everything by Marilly.”

The only dark chapter in the family history was referred to for the last time, to be forgotten by father and son. The old people had, after all, gloried in their son’s bravery in keeping to his own way and choice. The two farms joined. Marilla and her mother were their next neighbors; the mother had since died.

“Father,” exclaimed William Haydon suddenly, as they neared the barn, “I do’ know now but I’ve thought o’ the very one!”

“What d’ye mean?” said the old man, startled a little by such vehemence.

“‘T ain’t nobody I feel sure of getting,” explained the son, his ardor suddenly cooling. “I had Maria Durrant in my mind–Marilla’s cousin. Don’t you know, she come and stopped with us six weeks that time Marilla was so dyin’ sick and we hadn’t been able to get proper help; and what a providence Maria Durrant was! Mother said one day that she never saw so capable a woman.”

“I don’t stand in need of nursin’,” said the old man, grumbling, and taking a defensive attitude of mind. “What’s the use, anyway, if you can’t get her? I’ll contrive to get along somehow. I always have.”

William flushed quickly, but made no answer, out of regard to the old man’s bereaved and wounded state. He always felt like a schoolboy in his father’s presence, though he had for many years been a leader in neighborhood matters, and was at that moment a selectman of the town of Atfield. If he had answered back and entered upon a lively argument it probably would have done the old man good; anything would have seemed better than the dull hunger in his heart, the impossibility of forming new habits of life, which made a wall about his very thoughts.

After a surly silence, when the son was needlessly repentant and the father’s face grew cloudy with disapproval, the two men parted. William had made arrangements to stay all the afternoon, but he now found an excuse for going to the village, and drove away down the lane. He had not turned into the highroad before he wished himself back again, while Israel Haydon looked after him reproachfully, more lonely than ever, in the sense that something had come between them, though he could not tell exactly what. The spring fields lay broad and green in the sunshine; there was a cheerful sound of frogs in the lower meadow.