Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/163

Rh ments, a glowing mass of color. The singing, yellow-banded bees were busy all day in the cups of scarlet fading to pink and white, and white shading into yellow. The afternoon sun was behind them, lighting them to unwonted glory, when Felix came plodding along the lane on each side of which the apple trees were beginning to grow tall. Barbara was in the garden cutting sweet peas into her apron and Ralph, beside her, was standing in silence, watching the bees. A dozen times the girl had read that same thought in his mind, that he would give ten years of life to unsay the words that had driven his brother away and that had taught himself such a bitter lesson. Then suddenly Barbara uttered such a cry of joy that even the bees hummed and hovered lower, and slow old Chloe came hurrying to the door. The old woman smiled, with tears running down her wrinkled face, as she saw who it was that came trudging up the hill.

"There's good luck come back to this house at last," she said aloud an hour later when Felix, as the twilight was falling, sat down upon the doorstep and began to play his violin.

He never grew tired of telling the tale of his adventurous journey, nor did his sister and brother ever grow tired of listening. Ralph Brighton had lost, in that one dreadful hour, his love for dollar signs, and he nodded in wise agreement over Felix's decision to give up the quest for gold. Barbara would hearken in awed fascination to that story of