For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard . Monday evening he went cod-fishing , and Tuesday evening he went up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy . Alexander won all the games so easily that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again . `` Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering , '' he complained to his wife . `` He 'll never make a checker player -- never in this world . '' CHAPTER VI . THE STORY OF KILMENY Wednesday evening Eric went to the orchard again ; and again he was disappointed . He went home , determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry . Fortune favoured him , for he found Mrs. Williamson alone , sitting by the west window of her kitchen and knitting at a long gray sock . She hummed softly to herself as she knitted , and Timothy slept blackly at her feet . She looked at Eric with quiet affection in her large , candid eyes . She had liked Mr. West . But Eric had found his way into the inner chamber of her heart , by reason that his eyes were so like those of the little son she had buried in the Lindsay churchyard many years before . `` Mrs. Williamson , '' said Eric , with an affectation of carelessness , `` I chanced on an old deserted orchard back behind the woods over there last week , a charming bit of wilderness . Do you know whose it is ? '' `` I suppose it must be the old Connors orchard , '' answered Mrs. Williamson after a moment 's reflection . `` I had forgotten all about it . It must be all of thirty years since Mr. and Mrs. Connors moved away . Their house and barns were burned down and they sold the land to Thomas Gordon and went to live in town . They 're both dead now .
Mr. Connors used XXXXX be very proud of his orchard .
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