“That bearskin’s in the study still. The grandchildren still lie on it and hug the big head—but Cornelius has changed. Only the other day he told me if he ever got well he wouldn’t shoot any more, not even woodcock—‘especially not woodcock’ was what he said.”

“I wonder why—why he changed.”

“I used to hunt myself. Can’t imagine it now. Maybe we get less primitive as we get older.”

“Though hardly more ethereal.” Ellen smiled, for Cornelius had become a heavy man these last years, heavy and solid.

“Maybe not, but maybe we have pity on the living, more pity perhaps, because we feel so frail and in peril ourselves.”

“Yes …”

They had reached the top of the final rise in the road. Flicker greeted them with loud barks of welcome. There was Old Pete still sitting on the stone wall, smoking his pipe.

“Didn’t think to see you come back on this road,” he called out.

“We got lost, came out at Preckles’.”

Flicker bounded up, leaping in the air.

“Down, boy!” Christina was afraid of being knocked over and spoke sharply. Old Pete called the dog back to his side and watched them walk slowly up toward the farm.

They had been gone about an hour, Pete reckoned, but they did not look like gazelles now. Old Pete, who had his own aches and pains to contend with, looked shrewdly at Christina’s limp. But to his admiring eyes the tall woman still held herself like a queen. It’s the way she holds her head, he said to himself—as if nothing on earth could get her down. And Old Pete, his feet bound up in rags inside his boots, his old jacket more like the skin of an animal than a piece of clothing, enjoyed the sight of good clothes on a woman. Christina’s flame-colored suede jacket and gray skirt, the white chiffon scarf round her throat, looked just right to him.