Читать книгу Doreen, The Story of a Singer - Ada Ellen Bayly - Страница 9

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"Sweet thoughts, bright dreams, my comforts be,

All comfort else has flown;

For every hope was false to me,

And here I am alone.

What thoughts were mine in early youth!

Like some old Irish song,

Brimful of love, and life, and truth,

My spirit gushed along."—Thomas Davis.

Doreen's letter arrived in Bloomsbury the next morning, and lay on the breakfast table to greet the mistress of the house, without any black border to herald its contents. At sight of the Liverpool postmark, Aunt Garth caught it up eagerly, and over her worn and somewhat sad face there flitted a smile of content.

"They have landed, then!" she exclaimed, "and to-day I shall see Mary again after all these years of separation!"

In outward appearance the two sisters were much alike; but Mrs. Garth, though her life had apparently been much less trying, looked, nevertheless, sadder than Mrs. O'Ryan, who, spite of poverty and sorrow, and the long imprisonment of her husband, had retained a marvellous youthfulness and buoyancy which was lacking in her sister. There was something very winning, however, in Aunt Garth's face; a sort of quiet strength was the first thing that impressed all who observed her, but scarcely any one really knew her: she lived a life apart, even while forming the very centre and main-spring of her household. Some people were bold enough to question whether even Uncle Garth himself really understood her, and perhaps he did not, being a man who accepted the great facts of life with the unquestioning faith of a child, and probably troubling himself very little about them. He was a good man and a good husband, but the enthusiasm of his nature spent itself in his daily work at the British Museum, and ancient Egypt was far more real to him than modern England, while as to Ireland, it was to him as Prince Metternich would have said,—merely "a geographical expression." Egyptology, however, had not at all interfered with his kindliness of heart; absent and preoccupied he might be, but if once roused to the perception that other people needed his help, nothing could exceed his readiness to serve them.

He was in a particularly absent mood that morning, his mind being full of some recent discoveries made at Alexandria, and his wife knew that it would be of no use attempting to make him listen to anything until he had opened the letter with the Egyptian stamp which awaited him. His dreamy gray eyes lighted up as he caught sight of the little view of the pyramid and the Sphinx upon his plate, and Aunt Garth went quietly about the table, cutting bread and putting eggs in the egg-boiler and pouring out coffee, with now and then a rather wistful glance towards the gray head bent over the sheets of large foreign paper. There is a popular notion that antiquarians and men of science are all shaggy, wild-looking, and unkempt; but Uncle Garth—possibly owing to his wife's exertions—was a particularly well-clothed, well-brushed man, and had an indefinable air of good preservation, from his closely cropped gray head and short gray beard to his faultless boots.

"I have had a letter from Doreen, dear," said Mrs. Garth, when at length the letter from Egypt was folded up and a possible pause in Uncle Garth's reflections arrived, owing to the necessity of decapitating an egg,—a ceremony which he always performed with scrupulous care after a peculiar method of his own invention. "She writes from Liverpool in great trouble, for her father died during the voyage."

"What! Patrick dead!" exclaimed Uncle Garth, with a look of concern. "Poor fellow,—poor fellow! What a wasted life! And your sister and those five children but ill provided for, I am afraid."

"I should fear there can be very little for them, though I know they left America free from debt and were hopeful about some appointment which he had got in London as correspondent to one of the Irish papers," said Mrs. Garth. "Several times Mary has written of his failing health; he has never really been well since he was in prison," she said; "being ill-fitted to stand the rough work he had to do, and fretting his heart out all those five years about her and the little ones. There were only the two of them then,—Doreen and little Michael. I remember staying with them just after Michael's birth, when you were in Egypt,—it must have been the year before he was arrested,—and his devotion to the children was wonderful to see. Doreen used to follow him about everywhere like a little shadow."

"It's a sad business," said Uncle Garth reflectively. "He was a very good fellow and pleasant enough to talk with, but with this unlucky craze about Irish rights. I remember well the very last talk I had with him when he was full of the national rights and the national duties, and I plainly pointed out to him that Ireland being wedded to England had ceased to be a nation, that it had no separate rights, that it was in fact in the position of a wife. But these Irish fellows are so impracticable, one might as well have talked to the winds. Hopelessly perverse and headstrong, the whole race of them!"

Aunt Garth smiled ever so little, having divined the weak point of his argument with its frank admission of the essential difference between the two nationalities. Then she thought of her sister, and her face grew sad once more.

"I fear Mary is very ill, from what Doreen says," she remarked, handing the letter across the table to her husband. "If you don't mind, dear, I think I must go to them to-day, and see what can be done to help them."

"It is a very damp day for you to risk a journey," said Uncle Garth, looking up from the letter. "But still, this seems urgent. If you go to-day, I might run down from Saturday to Monday, and see what can be done to help them. Poor things! it is a sad lookout for those children."

So Aunt Garth, who was scarcely allowed out of the house in cold weather, owing to her delicate chest, set off by the morning express to Liverpool, and arrived in Grove Street that afternoon, tired and anxious, and chilled to the bone, in spite of the sable cloak wrapped closely about her. She asked for Doreen, and was ushered by a shabby maid-of-all-work up the narrow staircase. At the foot of the second flight, however, their way was blocked by a little blue-eyed dreamy-looking boy with sunny brown hair cut across his forehead and hanging in short, tangled curls about his neck. He was entirely absorbed in the story of "Rumpelstiltskin" which a boy some years his senior was reading aloud to him, the book lying on the top stair and the reader extended at full length, in a position which displayed to the best possible advantage his well-patched knickerbockers and his thin legs.

"Master Michael," said the servant, "get up quick, there's a good boy; here's a lady a comin' up."

Michael was on his feet in a minute.

"Oh, auntie!" he cried. "How glad mother will be to see you! We were afraid it would be too cold for you to come. Shall I carry your bag for you?"

Mrs. Garth, wondering to find the little fellow who used to visit them, on his way to Portland, grown into this well-mannered boy, followed him as he led the way into a bedroom close by. The light was growing dim, and the comfortless look of the lodgings struck her painfully. A pale, slim girl, with her head well set upon her shoulders, and a dignity that seemed beyond her years, came quickly forward with eager greetings, carrying in her arms a fretful baby, while on the bed, she caught sight of another child sitting beside the motionless figure that lay there unheeding all that passed in the room.

"How sweet of yon to come at once," said Doreen, with a warmth of welcome which made Mrs. Garth's sad eyes shine. "Mother is not exactly asleep, I think, but all day she has lain like that, only rousing up when we actually speak to her."

Mrs. Garth moved quietly across to the bedside, and stood for some moments, looking at the fragile face which yet was less changed than she had feared.

"I will take off my bonnet," she said, "and then come back to stay with her. Don't disturb her just yet."

"Michael will take care of them here for a minute, and I will show you your room," said Doreen. "Oh, Mrs. Muchmore!" she exclaimed, as they passed out on to the staircase. "Have you come back to us again?"

"Should have been round before," said Hagar, who seldom employed a pronoun if she could help it, "but there was no leavin' my son and his wife. Guess the marriage will turn out well, after all, though it did seem a flyin' in the face of Providence which ordained that man should be created before his wife. How's Mis' O'Ryan?"

"She has been drowsy all day," said Doreen. "This is my aunt, Mrs. Garth, who has just arrived. I wish you would order tea to be brought up quickly; perhaps mother would take a little."

"Will see to it," said Hagar, bustling off, while Doreen, still carrying the baby, took Mrs. Garth to her room, talking as they went of Hagar's goodness to them on board.

"They were all kind to us," she said, "but Mrs. Muchmore was our good angel." Then, laughing a little at the idea, "She is not much like the conventional angel with yellow ringlets and a doll's face, is she? But that brisk, cheery way of hers kept us all going through that dreadful time."

She broke off abruptly. Some day, perhaps, she might speak freely of all that had passed at the time of her father's death, but now her lips were locked, not only by the sense that all her powers were needed to cope with the present trouble, but by that curious barrier which generally, to some extent, exists between those of different generations.

When they returned they found that Hagar Muchmore had lighted the candles and drawn down the blinds, contriving by a few rapid and dexterous touches to give a somewhat more comfortable air to the whole place. Then she carried off all the children to tea in the lower regions, promising that some should be sent up in a few minutes to the sick-room.

"Mother," said Doreen, bending down to kiss the invalid, "there is good news for you. Auntie has come; see, she is waiting to speak to you."

For the first time since her husband's death a gleam of pleasure lit up Mrs. O'Ryan's face; for a little while she was quite roused, and lay with her hand clasped in her sister's, listening eagerly to all that she had to tell, and to Doreen's great delight seeming even to enjoy the tea when it came. The poor girl had no experience to warn her that this was but the last faint flicker of the flame, and that death was close at hand. Once more her buoyant nature began to hope, and to weave countless plans for the future. She laughed and chatted with the children as she put them to bed, and consented without hesitation to lie down for a while herself, and leave the first watch of the night to Mrs. Garth. Her aunt was loath to disturb her; but about midnight so unmistakable a change set in that she dared not hesitate, and candle in hand she glided into the quiet room, glancing first at Michael and little Dermot sound asleep in their bed in the corner, with "Rumpelstiltskin" ready for an early morning hour, then crossing the room to the other bed, where, with the baby's cradle within reach, and with little Mollie's arms clasped about her, lay Doreen. The girl looked far younger asleep than awake; the curve of her cheek against the pillow, the dimple near the mouth, the untroubled calm of the whole face, told of youth and health. She yawned with the abandon of a sleepy child when her aunt roused her.

"What, time to get up already!" she exclaimed drowsily; then, suddenly noticing the strange voice, she started up with dilated eyes. "How is mother?" she cried.

"She is asking for you,—for you and Michael," said Mrs. Garth. "But she does not want the others to be disturbed."

With a sudden, terrible realization of what it all meant, Doreen, like one blind, groped her way across the room to rouse Michael,—no easy task. Then, together, they stole into the dimly-lighted room, awe-stricken and trembling, though there was nothing of what they had expected,—no painful struggle, no effort to say last words, no anxiety for the children she was leaving,—nothing but a tender embrace and a murmured blessing, then a peaceful sliding away into unconsciousness.

And even in the midst of her bitter sorrow Doreen was comforted to think that this was the sort of death her mother had always hoped for, an undisturbed death, with neither doctor nor clergyman, nor professional nurse, nor many friends standing by; but with the bustle of the working-day ended, and with the darkness revealing the presence of other worlds.

It was not until her aunt had left her, and until she had soothed Michael and settled him off to sleep again, that she altogether gave way. But as she once more lay down between the two youngest children, the sight of the little unconscious sisters to whom she had to play the part of second mother utterly overcame her. She buried her face in the pillow and wept as though her heart would break.

"I shall never, never be able to do it," she sobbed. "And they are too young to remember!"

How she lived through the days that followed, Doreen never quite knew, but probably the haunting consciousness of their poverty, and the urgent need that she should have all her wits about her, kept her from breaking down under the double shock she had undergone. People must either use their sorrows as stepping-stones, or be crushed beneath the weight of them. Doreen belonged to the climbers; a difficulty stimulated her and called out all that was best in her nature.

The very first sight of her raised Uncle Garth's spirits, when, on Saturday, he arrived, much perturbed to think of the responsibility that had been cast upon him by the death of his sister-in-law, and wholly at a loss to know how to dispose of her five children, who were so much less easy and pleasant to deal with than his beloved mummies. Uncle Garth did not like responsibility; he was ready to sacrifice anything except his peace of mind, but he guarded that jealously; the children might if they pleased look to him for food or clothing, but to spend his time about their affairs, to be expected to start the boys in life, to take, in any sense, the position of a father towards them, was quite another matter. He felt unequal to such a task; it had been difficult enough in the case of his own two sons, and having just started them in life,—the one in Canada, the other in India,—and experienced the blissful relief of having such cares and anxieties at an end, he was not at all inclined to embark upon a whole family of Irish orphans, who, as he reflected with some irritation, need never have been orphans at all, had it not been for the headstrong folly—miscalled patriotism—of their unfortunate father.

It was a shock, certainly, to a man of his secluded habits, to be shown into a room where children seemed to abound in so strange a way; but Doreen, quickly guessing that their presence would fatigue him, sent Dermot and Mollie away under Michael's care directly the greetings were over, marshalling her little flock so quietly, and taking such pains to make the newcomer comfortable, that Uncle Garth at once realized that he had to do with a woman, not with a mere school-girl, as he had anticipated. Even her slight Irish accent did not annoy him, and he watched with a vague admiration the understanding way in which she handled the baby,—for a baby had always been to him a fearful and wonderful thing, "not by any to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly." Bride, to be sure, was a plump and comfortable-looking infant, but he preferred to regard her from a distance.

"We have been talking, dear, about the future," began Mrs. Garth quietly. "Doreen has had a very kind letter this morning from one of her father's friends, offering to make a home for them in Ireland; but as it is necessary for her to be in London, if she is to become a public singer, we think the offer had better be refused."

"A singer?" said Uncle Garth. "Ah, yes, I remember hearing something to that effect."

"I have had a thoroughly good training in New York," said Doreen, "and have brought over a letter of introduction from my old maestro, which will, I hope, help me in getting engagements. But he advises me to have a course of lessons in oratorio singing from Rathenow, and that will, of course, be an expense. When everything is paid for here, I shall have scarcely anything in hand; and though Donal Moore will sell out the money that father had in the London and North Western, it will not realize more than four hundred pounds, mother thought. We must live upon that until I begin to earn money, and perhaps you would be willing to lend us some if my engagements do not at first come in very quickly. I am afraid all artistes have a hard struggle at first."

She sighed a little, with the impatience of one who feels a great power within himself doomed for a time at any rate to inaction.

"I shall most willingly help you, my dear, as far as money can help," said Uncle Garth. "But I should fancy the life of a professional singer is full of difficulty, and where one succeeds hundreds are fated to fail."

But Doreen was not to be daunted by this somewhat damping speech. "I must sing," she said simply. "I have intended to be a singer ever since I was ten years old."

"My dear, many people form wishes early in life which have, nevertheless, to be abandoned," said Uncle Garth. "Both of my boys vowed they would go to sea, but here is one of them farming in Canada, and the other in the Indian Civil Service, and happy enough in their work,—happy enough."

"Yes, perhaps," said Doreen, smiling ever so little. "But I am going to be a singer."

Her resolute voice made further argument impossible; and, fearing that she had spoken too vehemently, she added:—

"As to this offer of a home in Ireland, why, it is impossible to accept it; for Donal is a great deal too poor, and we have no real claim upon him. It is just his good-heartedness; he would give away the very clothes from his back if they would fit us! Donal Moore is a sort of primitive Christian, born by mistake in the nineteenth century, and awfully puzzled to find that orthodox people don't understand his notions of sharing."

"Donal Moore, did you say!" exclaimed Uncle Garth. "You don't mean Donal Moore the Nationalist?"

"Sure, then, but I do," said Doreen, instantly becoming a little more Irish in accent. "Donal is the kindest man alive; he lived for a whole year with us in America, and the boys just worship him. He is but lately married and settled in Dublin, and it would not be fair for us to take him at his word and quarter ourselves upon him. If you knew how full of suffering his life has been, and of all that he went through in prison, you would understand just how I feel about it."

"I quite think," said Uncle Garth hastily, "that it would be a most undesirable arrangement, and I hope, my dear, you will come to us. Now that my sons have left home, there is plenty of room, and I am sure it is the arrangement that your poor mother would have desired."

"We spoke of it together," said Aunt Garth, in her quiet voice; "and it seemed to set her mind quite at rest. Doreen need not feel that she is thrusting a burden upon you; when her reputation is made, she will be able to repay anything that you advance for the children; in accepting this offer she will in no way sacrifice her independence."

"It was not so much of the money that I was thinking, auntie,—that, of course, I could repay,—but it is the trouble to you and the change in your household, and all the coming and going and bustle that it must involve. They are good children; but of course where there are children there is bound to be noise, to say nothing of all my practising, which will, I am afraid, be tiresome for you."

"My dear," said Mrs. Garth, "has it never struck you that a house may be too quiet?"

And as she took her niece's hand in hers, Doreen guessed by the little tremor which she felt in it, that Aunt Garth was fretting sorely for the two sons who were supposed to be so happily settled abroad. Her heart went out to the patient, uncomplaining, reserved woman; it would be easy to respect Uncle Garth, to be very grateful to him for his kindness, and to put up with his hundred and one crotchets, but already she had learned to love her aunt, and to feel that she belonged to her.

"You must let me know," said Uncle Garth, "of any expenses that you are unable to meet here; there will be, of course, the mourning for yourself and the children: that alone will be a heavy tax on your purse."

"Thank you," said Doreen. "But I do not mean to wear black or to put the children into it. I am sure my father and mother would rather we did not run into debt. And what do we want to be thinking of dressmakers and milliners at such a time as this?"

"I am afraid people may misunderstand you," said her uncle hesitatingly. "You see it is the custom."

"Yes; but a heathenish custom, to my mind," said Doreen. "If for protection it is necessary to have some badge of grief, why, a black rosette fastened to one's jacket would answer the purpose quite as well."

"One would shrink from the talk it would inevitably make," said Uncle Garth.

"Yes," said Doreen wearily. "But some one must go first in every reform."

Her mind was so evidently made up that he ventured no more remonstrances, though in his secret soul he hankered sorely after an entirely proper equipment, with the orthodox depth of crape, the black veils, the black-bordered handkerchiefs, and the black kid gloves.

"The poor child is evidently born with revolutionary tendencies," he thought to himself. "It's a sad inheritance!—a sad inheritance!"

Spite of it all, however, there was something in Doreen that he cordially liked and respected. The quiet courage with which she bore up in this time of grief and overwhelming sorrow, the buoyant hopefulness with which she faced her future, most of all, perhaps, her devotion to her little brothers and sisters, impressed the Egyptologist not a little. For her sake he made heroic efforts to hide the disgust he felt at the prospect of having to meet Donal Moore, the Nationalist, and on the Sunday morning spent a considerable time in debating how he could best combine courtesy to the man with a certain unresponsive stiffness which should betoken loathing of his principles. It was, after all, natural enough that Patrick O'Ryan's old friend and executor should run over from Dublin to the funeral; his kindly offer to the children must also be borne in mind, and severity must be tempered with all due hospitality. The Irishman must, however, be made to feel that though with them, he was not of them.

With these thoughts in his mind, Uncle Garth returned from his Sunday morning walk and entered the sitting-room; Doreen, with her white face looking a degree less sad than he had yet seen it, sat on a low stool warming her hands at the fire. Opposite her, in the depths of a big armchair, with Michael on one side and Dermot on the other, and with little Mollie perched on his knee, sat a fair-skinned, broad-browed man, whose kindly blue eyes and peculiarly gentle face looked too young for his grizzled hair.

"Mr. Moore has just come, uncle," said Doreen; and Uncle Garth, with a murmured greeting, put a limp hand into the hand of the ticket-of-leave man, permitting him to shake it or not, as he pleased. Donal Moore, who never did things by halves, gave it a hearty grip, just as though they had been the warmest friends; and, in truth, he was thinking that he liked the look of Mr. Garth, and felt sure that the children were in good hands. He was not a self-conscious person, and it did not occur to him that the Englishman was at that moment thinking, "So, this is the notorious ex-Fenian! This the ardent Home Ruler!"

In spite of his prejudices, Uncle Garth was obliged to own that there was something singularly attractive about the newcomer. Years of suffering and imprisonment had, strangely enough, only elevated Donal Moore's noble nature. Forced into gaol amongst criminals of the lowest type and treated with greater severity than the vilest murderer, this man had somehow managed to retain his faith in human nature, and he had come out into the world again full of eager plans for coping with the evils which tend to produce criminals.

"Evidently he might have been a most useful member of society," reflected Uncle Garth regretfully, "had he not had the misfortune to be born in Ireland. Strange, that so thoughtful and sensible a man can yet be such a fool as to throw away the best years of his life on a mere visionary idea, a hare-brained scheme for recovering the land for the people."

Donal Moore, in the mean time, had somehow managed to discover Uncle Garth's hobby, and as they sat down to luncheon he skilfully drew the Egyptologist towards the subject that he loved; being resolved to help Doreen as much as possible, and guessing well enough how sore a heart lay beneath her quiet manner. She looked as though all the sparkling, radiant, joyous nature had been crushed out of her. He wondered whether she could ever again be the same light-hearted girl whose rippling laughter and merry talk had been wont to keep the whole household gay in New York.

It was not until they were actually driving to the cemetery that he had any chance of talking to her alone, and then, strangely enough, the least flicker of amusement passed over her face as the door was closed upon them.

"Uncle Garth will think me more unorthodox than ever," she said, "for arranging to come in the second carriage with you. But by this time you have exhausted Egypt, and who knows what unlucky topic he might have chanced upon. It is very good of you, Donal, to come to us in our trouble. It does make such a difference to have you. Have you ever been to a Protestant funeral before?"

"Only once," he replied; "and that was during my sixth year in Dartmoor Prison. Park, the well-known burglar died, and I was one of the prisoners told off to dig his grave and to carry the coffin."

"How horrible!" said Doreen with a shudder; "that wretch who had robbed and wounded so many people!"

"Well, God rest his soul," said Donal; "he was about as bad a man as could well be, but then you must remember he had been bred up in a sort of Fagin's school of crime. And as for the task of digging his grave, why, that is a piece of work most eagerly coveted by all convicts, for the vicar of Princetown has a kindly practice of giving the prisoners something to eat when their task is over; and I well remember, that bitter, cold day, what it was to get the rare treat of a good cup of tea and a decent slice of bread and meat after all those years of prison fare. There was a pretty little child who came out to look at us when the servant brought us the food, and a hideous lot we must have been in our convict garb, with our faces blue with the cold, and the damp, churchyard earth still clinging about us.

"'Why have they dug that hole?' asked the child.

"'Well,' said the servant, 'one of the prisoners is dead, my dear.'

"'Dead!' said the child. 'Why, then he'll be going up to heaven, you know; oh, do let me stay and see him go up.' And she looked at the sky, as if she fully expected to see it opening in preparation."

"It makes my blood boil, when I think of you in that horrible prison," said Doreen. "Oh, Donal! just think how different things might have been, if England had but shown us justice! When one looks at those smug, comfortable people, walking along so unconcernedly, it is hard not to grow bitter. It was the prison life that killed my father, and it was the shock of his death that killed my mother."

"Don't think of what might have been," said Donal Moore quietly. "Think of what may be, what assuredly will be won by the sufferings of all the thousands of Irish patriots. Do you think because people forget them that God forgets?"

"No," said Doreen, sighing. "I believe it all, and yet this apparent waste of so much sacrifice and devotion sometimes seems unendurable. If one could see the least reason or purpose in this long delay of justice, it would be less hard to bear. I am like the little child in the Princetown churchyard, and want to see the heavens opened, and know the 'Why' of everything."

Donal Moore was silent; he thought sadly of the family whose warm welcome to him in America had made so delicious a contrast with his dreary years of imprisonment; and that saddest thought of "Sweet households overthrown," carried him back to his own childhood, and to the remembrance of an eviction which had ruined his parents, and brought them all to the verge of starvation.

"Doreen," he said, in his simple, kindly fashion, taking the girl's hand in his, "many's the time that I have grown bitter and wrathful, thinking over the wrongs and cruelties of the past. And then there comes to my mind the saying of a good old priest,—'twas Father Flynn, whom you'll have heard your father speak of;—and when I told him of the blind rage and the vindictive hatred that seized me when I remembered certain scenes, he said to me: 'Donal, you were made to play a better part than that of cat's-paw to the devil. It's a good knight of Christ's that you're called to be, and this memory of the injustice is to spur you on to help your suffering countrymen.'"

"I should like this grief to spur me on to help," said Doreen. "But the sight of comfortable, ignorant, callous indifference, like Uncle Garth's, just maddens me. I know I will begin to hate the English, now that my mother is no longer here to keep me gentle-hearted."

"No, no," said Donal Moore; "haters can't be helpers. We shall hinder our cause if we fight with the devil's weapons. I am no longer a believer in physical force, but in moral compulsion. And you,—why there is a great career before you! Your voice ought to do much for Ireland."

And so with kindly words of good cheer, and even more by the perception that came to her of her companion's noble character, Doreen was helped through that long drive to Sefton Park cemetery. The sting of her sorrow seemed gone; she was able to look at the future with Donal Moore's eyes, and through all the grievous pain of the next half-hour she felt the strong support of his presence.

The ticket-of-leave man, the ardent reformer and agitator, was somehow the only man living who could have made that funeral service anything but a time of torture to her. But as she stood with Michael's hand in hers, at the foot of the open grave, she looked not down into the dreary depth at the coffin lid, but up to where Donal Moore stood at the further side, his grizzled head uncovered, his strong, gentle face outlined against the pale blue of the wintry sky; and she saw how his sufferings had helped, and for a moment she had her wish,—heaven was opened.

The fresh west wind blew upon her face; it seemed to brace her, to fill her with new life. Her spirit rose up bravely to meet the future. When the grace had been spoken, she turned promptly away, and, with her face lighted up by that wonderful spiritual beauty which now and then startles the dwellers upon this earth, she slipped her free hand into her aunt's. Together they walked slowly back to the gate, while Donal Moore and Uncle Garth followed behind.