The slanting rays of the afternoon sun filled the air with a genial warmth.

A little breeze bore from the orchard near by a fragrance of apple-blossoms.

A matronly hen, tethered by the leg to her coop, raised indignant protest against the outrage on her personal liberty, or clucked and crooned her invitations, counsels, warnings, and encouragements, in as many different tones, to her independent, fluffy brood of chicks, while a huge gobbler strutted up and down, thrilling with pride in the glossy magnificence of his outspread tail and pompous, mighty chest.
Hughie was conscious of a deep and grateful content, but across his content lay a shadow.

If only that would lift! As he watched Thomas with his mother, he realized how far he had drifted from his own mother, and he thought with regret of the happy days, which now seemed so far in the past, when his mother had shared his every secret.

But for him those days could never come again.
At supper, Hughie was aware of some subtle difference in the spirit of the home.