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The golden green of the first leaves darkened, and the plants sprang forward steadily Never before was such a , a full , bubbling showers, and laved their thirsty souls, and Zora held her beating breast day by day lest it rain too long or too heavily The sun burned fiercely upon the young cotton plants as the spring hastened, and they lifted their heads in darker, wilder luxuriance; for the ti was at hand

These days were days of alternate hope and doubt with Bles Alwyn Strength and a within hihty calling to deeds He was becohtness of his black world, and red anger flashed in hiain as he felt his bonds His e of next year; he was faintly grasping the wider, fuller world, and its thoughts and aspirations

But beside and around and above all this, like subtle, pers for her were not as yet definite, expressed, or grasped; they were rather the ated Froht- to a silenter, , ently, irresistibly, but not yet at the realized goal

He felt all this as the stirring of aof his fellows, the coossip of the school yard, seenantly denied it Yet he was uncomfortable, restless, unhappy He fancied Zora cared less for his coave her less, and then was puzzled to find ti so eether in these days they found less to talk about, and had it not been for the Silver Fleece which in ic wilfulness opened both their mouths, they would have found their companionship little more than a series of aard silences Yet in their silences, their walks, and their sittings there was a colow, a satisfaction, as came to them nowhere else on earth, and they wondered at it

They were both wondering at it this ly bounded forward in a night and itwasaway of tenderer plants that the sturdier row