Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/32

 beyond our finger tips. It holds promise. If we caught up with it, then indeed would our lives be desolated. Happiness does not come from the things we have but from the things we expect to get.

In the whiteness of the night Jethro walked slowly back to the house.

Roma, his second wife, a splendid woman, a born mother who had always been childless, met him at the door. She had been rather worried. Never had she known him to stay away for so long a period without explanation.

"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously.

Jethro drew his hand wearily across his eyes as though he had been scarcely conscious of her presence. He smiled a trifle wearily.

"Matter?" he repeated vaguely. "Matter? Nothing is the matter. I have been far off over the fields, much farther than I had intended going, but everything is all right. I think I shall go straight to bed. I am very tired." Before mounting the stairs, he turned to her once more. "I heard the promise of spring whispering in the soil," he said. "I think next