"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never coming back to finish my job?"
Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper
Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.
"'T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the pronoun, "to leave undone what we've set our hands and paws to do, eh, Laddie?"
He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels from the pockets of his short, shaggy coat. "The year's sorrow is at an end."
"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.
"Doesn't it," he asked. "How old is yours?"
"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking. The horror of it was pressing heavily upon her.
"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I'm thinking there is something wrong. No sorrow should last more than a year—'t is written all around us so."
"Written? I have never seen it written."