"What's the matter?" asked Charles Stuart, shaking with amusement. "If you feel ill, I'll call old Bags back, Lizzie. He's a medical—in John's year, and they all say he's going to be gold-medalist."

"U-g-h!" Elizabeth sat up and regarded the bedroom door with disgust. "Human bones under the bed! Charles Stuart MacAllister, I do think medical students are the most abominable——"

"It's a fact," he agreed cordially. "When a man borrows your bones I think the limit is reached. It's bad enough when John borrows my ties and my boots."

He was speaking absently, and Elizabeth looked at him. He was glancing down at the magazine again, which was lying open on the table. She went straight to the point. "Stuart, you don't like my little verses."

He started. "Why, I—what makes you think so? I think they are beautiful—full of light and music and"—he paused.

"You looked disappointed when you finished," she persisted.

He was silent. "What was the reason?"

"I—I was looking for something I couldn't find," he said hesitatingly.

"What?"

"Its soul."

"Its soul?—'the light that never was on land or sea.' You are too exacting. Only real poets do things like that. I'm not a genius."

"You don't need to be. But one must live a real life to write real things," he said bluntly.

"And I don't," she said half-defiantly. She looked at him wonderingly, at his broad shoulders and his grave face, feeling as though this was the first time she had seen him. He seemed suddenly to be entirely unlike the old Charles Stuart who had always been merely a sort of appendage to John—a second John in fact, only not one-half so dear. It came to her like a revelation that he was not at all the old Charles Stuart, but somebody new and strange; and he was sitting in judgment upon her useless way of living! She picked up the Dominion and at a glance she saw the verses as he saw them. He was right—they were shallow, pretty little things, nothing more. Her lip quivered.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Lizzie," he was saying contritely—"that's only one opinion—and I may be wrong."

"No, you're right," said Elizabeth, "only I didn't see it before."

They were interrupted by John's return. "Jean's calling you, Lizzie. She's got a pleasant little job for you downstairs. Don't be scared. I locked Bags and the skeleton into his room. He won't catch you."

Elizabeth, glad to get away, ran out and down to the next floor. Jean was standing at her room door, the green shade still over her wrinkled brow, her collar and belt both missing. She held up a card.

"Lizzie, could you go downstairs and interview the owner of this?" she pleaded, frowningly. "It's a caller. She's been sent by some new society your fashionable friends have organized in St. Stephen's. I do wish those idle people would leave busy ones alone. I haven't time to go down, and Mills simply won't be bothered."

Elizabeth took the card. "Miss Blanche Kendall," she read. "Why, this is the very thing Mrs. Jarvis wants me to join. Of course I'll go. What excuse shall I make?"

"Anything at all. I don't care."

"Very well. I'll tell her my brother has loaned his bones and my sister her clothing, and therefore they cannot come."

Jean did not resent the hint regarding her disorderly appearance. She disappeared, slamming the door with a sigh of relief. Elizabeth went hopefully downstairs. She was on the whole rather glad of the unexpected meeting. Miss Kendall she knew to be a very fashionable young lady indeed. Hunting up lonely students hardly seemed an occupation that would appeal to her. Who knew, the girl told herself, but she had been mistaken, and these young ladies were whole-hearted and sincere in their efforts. She entered the long, dingy parlor fully prepared to learn from Miss Kendall.

The visitor, a rather handsome young woman in a smart tailored suit, was sitting on the extreme edge of an uncomfortable chair, looking bored. She showed no sign of recognition as Elizabeth advanced smilingly. The latter was not surprised. She had met Miss Kendall only once—at a card-party—and Elizabeth had learned long ago that card-parties were not functions where one went to get acquainted with people. She remembered that Miss Kendall had sat at a table near her, that she had played with a kind of absorbed fury, and had gone off radiant, bearing a huge brass tray, the winner's trophy.

"Miss Mills?" she inquired, giving two of Elizabeth's fingers a twitch.

"No, Miss Gordon," said Elizabeth. "Miss Mills asks if you will be so good as to excuse her this evening. She has an unusual amount of work." She was about to add an apology for her sister, when Miss Kendall, looking frankly relieved, broke in: "Oh, it doesn't matter. You see, I'm sent by our Young Women's Guild—of St. Stephen's, you know; they are trying to call upon all the young women in this district who are away from home and likely to be lonely, and our president gave me Seaton Crescent. It will be perfectly satisfactory if I just report on them."

She opened a little elegant leather-bound note-book and consulted it in a business-like manner. "I mustn't miss anyone; Miss Withrow, our president, is so particular. Let me see. You are Miss Gordon,"—she put a mark opposite the name,—"one call; Miss Mills—two calls. I shall leave her a card. Then there are Miss Brownlee and Miss Chester—they are out, I understand, but I shall leave cards so I can count them too. Now, do you know of any others in this house who should attend St. Stephen's?"

Elizabeth's eyes were growing bigger every moment. This was an entirely new and original manner of comforting the lonely. Evidently Miss Kendall believed in bringing all her business ability to bear on her acts of charity. "Just what I thought they'd do," she said to herself. Then her love of mischief came to her undoing. Her long lashes drooped over her eyes.

"There are my brother and his friend, Mr. MacAllister," she said with wicked intent.

"Oh, I don't want young men," said Miss Kendall all unsuspicious. "There is another society for looking after them. MacAllister"—she consulted the note-book. "I think that was the name of the person who sent in another young woman's name—Turner. Is there a Miss Turner boarding here?"

Elizabeth wondered what in the world Charles Stuart had to do with it, as she ran over the list of boarders in her mind.

"I can't remember anyone of that name," she answered.

"Oh, well, never mind. I have enough, anyway," said the visitor with a relieved sigh. She dropped the little book into her hand-bag and closed it with a snap. Then she looked about her as if trying to find something to talk about. Elizabeth sat mischievously silent and waited.

The caller seemed to get little inspiration from the furniture. "I was sent to call by our Guild, of course," she remarked again, as though she felt it necessary to account for her presence.

"How nice of them," murmured Elizabeth. "Do you do much of this sort of work, Miss Kendall?"

"No, this is my first attempt, but I think I have taken it up pretty thoroughly. It comes rather heavy on one who has so many social duties as I have, but of course one does not expect these church calls returned."

"Oh," said Elizabeth demurely, "I thought one always returned calls."

"Oh, not necessarily, I assure you," the lady remarked rather hastily.

"You see, I never received a church call before," said Elizabeth meekly.

The visitor looked at her a moment almost suspiciously, but the air of childlike innocence was disarming. There was another long silence, while Elizabeth sat with folded hands and vowed that if the church-caller didn't speak before the clock struck twelve neither would she. She was wickedly hoping she was uncomfortable.

Miss Kendall seemed to suddenly note some incongruity between Elizabeth's fashionable attire and the life of a student. She looked more like a milliner or dressmaker, she decided. "Do you study very hard?" she inquired at last.

"Rather hard," was the sly answer.

"I suppose one must."

"Yes, one must." Elizabeth had suddenly decided upon her line of action. She remembered how, whenever Noah Clegg's daughters went a-visiting about Forest Glen, they would sit for a whole long afternoon with hands primly folded, and reply to all remarks by a polite repetition of the remarker's last statement, never volunteering a word of their own. She could recall a long, hot afternoon when her aunt and Annie had essayed alternate remarks upon the weather, the crops, the garden, church, Sunday school, and the last sermon, to the verge of nervous prostration without varying their visitors' echoing responses by so much as one syllable. Elizabeth felt that Miss Kendall deserved all the discomfort she could give her. She folded her hands more primly and waited. Her victim glanced along the chromos on the wall.

"It's been very warm for November, has it not?" she said at last.

"Yes, very warm," said Elizabeth, also examining the chromos.

"I suppose you go to church regularly?"

"Yes, quite regularly."

"Dr. Harrison is such a clever speaker, isn't he?"

"Yes, very clever."

"His sermons, I think, are quite profound."

"Yes indeed, very profound."

It reminded Elizabeth of the Cantata they had sung in the joyous old days at Cheemaun High School, where the chorus answered the soloist again and again with "Yes, that's so!" She wondered how long she dared keep it up and not laugh. She began to be just a little afraid that she might give way altogether and make Miss Kendall think she was quite mad.

But apparently the church call was drawing to a close. The caller once more consulted her notebook and arose. "Four calls," she said with a satisfied air. "I wonder if I couldn't put down five. You said there wasn't a Miss Turner here?"

"No, unless she came recently. Shall I inquire?"

"Oh, no thank you, I really can't spare the time. I have several other places to visit. I think she's a domestic, Mr. MacAllister said. One has to take all sorts, you know. I can count her, anyway, and here's a card for her if you happen to find her."

Elizabeth took the little bundle. She noticed that Miss Kendall's day was not marked in the corner, but instead the inscription, "St. Stephen's Young Women's Christian Guild."

"Those are our cards," said the visitor, noticing Elizabeth's glance. "Of course everyone understands by that, that it's not a social call one is making. You see, Miss Gordon, one must keep those things separate."

"Yes, I am sure one ought to," agreed Elizabeth with deep meaning, as she bowed the church caller out. She fairly soared to the top flat, convulsed with mirth. Jean would not appreciate the church call, she would not see the funny side of it, and might even resent it. But the boys would understand.

They did not fail her, they put away their books and gave themselves over to hilarity as she described the manner in which the Young Woman's Christian Guild of St. Stephen's had set about welcoming the homeless girls of Seaton Crescent.

"How 'll you explain your Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde existence next time you meet Miss Kendall at a Green Tea?" asked John as the supper-bell interrupted the nonsense.

Elizabeth paused as she gathered up her cloak.

"John Gordon! I never thought of that! And I had orders to cultivate her society!" For a moment she looked troubled. "May a kind fate send her a short memory," she added. "Come along, which of you isn't too hungry to see me home?"

Neither was, and they both saw her safely to the door of the Seaton Court vestibule; and as she rehearsed the church call once more by the way, she quite forgot to ask Charles Stuart how his name happened to be mixed up with it.

Her eyes were still sparkling with fun, as she ran up the stairs and swept into Mrs. Jarvis's sitting-room.

"At last!" cried that lady looking up with a pleased smile, and at the same moment a tall man arose from a seat near the fire. He was a very fine-looking gentleman, faultlessly dressed and slightly pompous in manner. A certain stoutness of figure and thinness of hair told that he had passed his youth. He had, moreover, the air of a man who has reached a high rung on the ladder of success.

Mrs. Jarvis stretched out her hand and drew Elizabeth forward, the girl could not help noticing that she seemed pleasurably excited.

"Come, Beth, here is an old acquaintance. This is Mr. Huntley, Miss Gordon."

Mr. Huntley advanced with a look of genuine pleasure on his rather round face.

"Ah," he said, with a most flattering accent. "I am charmed to be presented once more to Queen Elizabeth."



CHAPTER XV

WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Since that day in Cheemaun when Elizabeth had met Mrs. Jarvis, and unconsciously stumbled upon what Miss Gordon deemed her fortune, the girl had enjoyed her aunt's highest approval. She had made several holiday visits to the old home, and each time Miss Gordon had noted new signs of improvement. And now that Elizabeth had further distinguished herself by writing a poem, Miss Gordon's approbation broke out in an affectionate letter, that warmed the girl's love-craving heart.

The Gay Gordons, each after his own fashion, expressed his views of this new development of the wild streak, producing all sorts of opinions from Mr. Gordon, who memorized the pretty verses and hummed them over at his work and to Jean, who, while confessing that the little rhyme had no literary value, declared herself exceedingly glad that Lizzie was about to do something.

Mrs. Jarvis was the most highly pleased, and to add further to her joy, sent a copy of the Dominion containing the poem to her niece in Cheemaun. The Olivers had not been on the best of terms with their aunt since Madeline had been superseded by an interloper, and Mrs. Jarvis was not above enjoying her niece's chagrin.

Elizabeth heard of the effect of the poem from Estella. She wrote a rapturous letter, two pages of which were filled with congratulations, the other ten with a description of the perfectly horrid, mean way the Olivers were acting—except Horace—and the perfectly frightful time she was having with all her clamoring suitors. Horace was not excepted this time. She ended up by declaring she almost felt like marrying Horry just to spite Madeline—who still refused to notice her socially,—only he had been Beth's beau so long, she felt it would be cruel and wicked.

Elizabeth wrote renouncing all claim upon the youth, and signing over whatever rights she may have had to Estella. She sighed a little over Madeline's case, for they had been old school-mates, and Elizabeth felt keenly her position as usurper. Nevertheless, she was happier now than she had been since she left The Dale as Mrs. Jarvis's companion. She believed that her pen had found for her a purpose in life. Under all Elizabeth's gay exterior, unquenched by the idle life of fashion, there lay a strong desire to be of use in a large, grand way—the old Joan of Arc dream. When she had first entered the new world with Mrs. Jarvis, her dream had centered about Eppie, her forlorn little school-mate. The pathos of Eppie's old-fashioned figure and pale face had never ceased to touch Elizabeth's heart.

At first her conscience, trained by Mother MacAllister, had rebelled at the thought of accepting a luxurious home from the woman who had, through callous indifference, allowed Eppie to be turned away from her poor little log-cabin home in the forest. But Elizabeth could never have explained to her aunt her reluctance to accept the brilliant prospects before her, so she had gone into the new life determined to use whatever influence she could gain with her new companion towards bringing back Eppie and her grandfather to Forest Glen. But the years had passed, and, so far, she had accomplished nothing. Old Sandy and Eppie had disappeared, and even should she find them Elizabeth had little hope of help from Mrs. Jarvis. She could be indolently and weakly generous in the face of a pressing need, presented directly to her, but her young companion had always found her callously indifferent to any tale of distress that called for an effort of any sort.

And so Elizabeth's ambition had gradually waned, until she was in danger of developing into a mere woman of fashion. But now she had found a new avenue for her activities. She would produce a great song one day, something that would make the world better and that would command Charles Stuart's approbation, no matter how unwilling he was to give it. Accordingly she made a bolder flight into the realm of poesy, and sent this second venture to the Dominion. To her dismay it was promptly sent back without a remark. A third and fourth effort to gain an entrance to lesser publications, ending in failure, convinced her that once more she had made a mistake. The Pretender was right, she had not the divine fire. She tried prose next, but she could not weave a story had her life depended upon it, and as for those clever articles other women wrote, she did not even understand what they were about. No, she was a failure surely, she told herself. This little song was like her acting on the school stage in the old days at home. She had promised to be a star and had suddenly set in oblivion.

She gave up literature entirely, and once more that old imperative question, of what use was she to be in the world, faced her. She might have found opportunities in plenty in St. Stephen's Church, but the only young ladies she knew in the congregation belonged to the select Guild of which Miss Kendall was a member, and since her encounter with that lady Elizabeth had wisely avoided her. Besides, she felt that John and Charles Stuart would surely disown her if she were caught connecting herself with that society.

But the opportunities for self-examination and consequent self-dissatisfaction grew fewer as the winter advanced. Luncheons, receptions, bridge tournaments, and theater parties followed each other with such bewildering swiftness that Elizabeth seldom had time for serious thought. So busy was she that often a week flew past without an opportunity even to run over to No. 15, much to the satisfaction of Mrs. Jarvis, who was often jealous of its attractions.

There was a new reason, too, for Elizabeth's many engagements, other than her popularity. Ever since the evening early in the autumn when Mr. Huntley had recognized his little Queen Elizabeth of the Forest Glen woods, he had been paying her marked attentions. He was a wealthy man now, one of the city's most prominent lawyers, a large shareholder in one of the new and most promising railroads, and—as Mrs. Jarvis joyfully pointed out to Elizabeth at every opportunity—the best match to be met in their social circle.

At first his notice had flattered Elizabeth and pleased her. It was just what she had thought she wanted. There had been very little of such pleasant experiences in her life. She had been a spectator of many pretty romances, but had always stood on the outer edge of the enchanted land, longing, yet fearing to enter. Looking back she had to confess that Horace Oliver had produced her only romance, and now Horace was gone. Some of the young men she met in the fashionable world attracted her at first, and finally bored her. Often some one of them, captivated by her star-like eyes and her vivacity, would single her out for special favors, and be met with great cordiality. Then suddenly, to Mrs. Jarvis's disgust, Elizabeth would grow weary of him and take no pains to hide her feelings. The young men soon ceased to run the risk of being so treated. "Miss Gordon was eccentric," they said, "and besides had a sharp tongue." Elizabeth noticed wistfully that all possible suitors drifted away and wondered what was the matter with her.

But Mr. Huntley promised to be entirely constant, and his intentions grew more obvious every day.

He was almost a middle-aged man now, and not likely to have passing fancies. But here as elsewhere Elizabeth found herself behaving in an unexpected fashion. She told herself that Mrs. Jarvis was right, and that if Mr. Huntley asked her to marry him she would indeed be a fortunate young woman, and yet when he came to their apartments in Crescent Court she was always seized with a wild desire to run away to Jean and the boys.

Nevertheless she reveled in the idea of being loved, and as long ago she had striven to put her pretty teacher upon a pedestal for worshipping, just because a teacher was always a glorified being, so she sought to surround Mr. Huntley's rather pompous middle-aged figure with the rose mist of her girlish dreams. For Elizabeth wanted to be loved more than anything else in the wide world.

And so the winter sped away in days crammed with pleasure-seeking, and the light of Mother MacAllister's teaching had almost faded from Elizabeth's life. But just as it had grown too dim to be seen by mortal eye, there came softly stealing into her heart the first hint of that dawn which was soon to break over her spirit and melt the gathering clouds of uselessness and selfishness. Slowly and almost imperceptibly the day was advancing, just as it had risen that summer morning so long ago when her wondering child-eyes had seen it steal over The Dale. There was no light as yet. Forms of right and wrong remained dim and not yet to be distinguished from each other; nevertheless the first note of the approaching dawn-music was soon to be sounded. It was to be a very feeble note,—the cry of a bird with a broken pinion—but it was to usher in the day of Elizabeth's new life.

Spring had begun to send forth her heralds in the form of high March winds. It was a chilly afternoon, and Mrs. Jarvis, her attempts at youthfulness all laid aside, was sitting huddled between the grate fire and the steam radiator drinking her tea.

"Beth," she called sharply, "don't forget your engagement for this afternoon."

Mrs. Jarvis's tone told Elizabeth that the usual dispute regarding her goings and comings was at hand. Generally she managed to cajole her querulous companion into permitting her her own way, but prospects did not look very bright at present. She emerged slowly from the pretty blue bedroom looking very handsome in her rich furs and a gray-blue toque that matched her eyes.

"You mean that committee of Miss Kendall's? I'm afraid if I go I'll get tangled up in that awful Guild."

Since the day she had met Miss Kendall doing charitable work in Seaton Crescent, Elizabeth had managed by much scheming to avoid that young lady. But a few days previous a little note had come from her asking Miss Gordon to come to the committee rooms at the church to help arrange some private theatricals which the Young Woman's Guild purposed giving for an Easter entertainment. The proceeds were to go to the poor, and Miss Kendall felt sure Miss Gordon would be interested; besides, she had heard Miss Gordon had especial talent for the stage. As Miss Kendall knew nothing whatever about Miss Gordon, the latter had wondered where she got her information, until Mr. Huntley had enlightened her. He had dropped in the same evening with a dozen roses, and had intimated that he had helped Miss Kendall make out her list. Mrs. Jarvis had been overjoyed, and now the day had come and Elizabeth was in some dismay as to how she was to get out of the predicament.

"Miss Withrow, the president, sent me an invitation to come to a meeting in the church. Some missionary man is to give an address. Now, wouldn't you rather I'd go there than to those giddy theatricals? The Withrows are quite as important as the Kendalls."

"Don't be sarcastic. It's very unladylike. I'm not so anxious for you to join the Guild, but I want you to go to Blanche's meeting. Mr. Huntley was telling me those girls are getting their heads full of romantic notions about slumming and all that nonsense. I know he doesn't like that type of woman, so you are as well out of it."

Elizabeth's long lashes drooped rebelliously.

"What has he to do with my affairs?"

"Oh indeed! What has he to do with them?" Mrs. Jarvis imitated her voice and manner. "He acts just now as though he had everything to do with you." She suddenly grew serious. "Mr. Huntley is a very fastidious gentleman, Miss Elizabeth, and you'd better not let him know anything about your eccentric tricks. It might spoil your chances."

Elizabeth's face flushed. "My chances of what, for instance?" she inquired.

Mrs. Jarvis laughed good-naturedly.

"Don't be absurd. Whatever you are you're not dull. Why do you persist in ignoring what is patent to everybody? Do you mean to stand there, Elizabeth Gordon, and tell me you never imagined yourself Mrs. Huntley?"

"Oh, as to that: there's no limit to what one can imagine. I've imagined myself Joan of Arc, often—and Mrs. Horace Oliver, and Jake Martin's third—supposing he dared outlive Auntie Jinit—and a circus rider, and a pelican of the wilderness, and any other absurd thing, without seriously considering taking up any of the afore-mentioned professions."

"Oh, you absurd young hypocrite. Run away now, and don't bother me. Go right over to the church at once and help Blanche. You always seem to miss every chance for getting better acquainted with her."

Elizabeth went slowly down the stairs, telling herself whimsically that the way of the transgressor was hard. She had not gone many steps before her spirit caught the mood of the radiant March day. There had been a light fall of snow in the morning, and the streets were beautiful for the moment under their fresh covering. The keen air and the dazzling sunlight brought a glow to her checks and a light to her eyes. She could not be troubled on such a radiant day by all the Miss Kendalls in Canada.

As she crossed the park, now a sparkling fairy garden, she was suddenly made conscious that a familiar figure was hastening along a crosspath in her direction; a comfortable-looking, middle-aged figure that moved with a stately stride. For an instant Elizabeth was possessed with a perverse feeling of irritation, as though he were guilty of the restrictions laid upon her. That he was the innocent cause of some of them could not be denied, for he was a very particular gentleman as to his own and everyone else's deportment, and the sight of him always raised in her a desire to do something shocking.

He smiled with genuine pleasure as he greeted her; though his manner was formal and a trifle pompous.

"And how is Queen Elizabeth this afternoon?" he asked. "As radiant as usual, I perceive."

She returned his greeting a trifle constrainedly, gave the requested permission to accompany her, and walked demurely at his side, her eyes cast down. She was wondering mischievously what he would say if she should tell him her reasons for wishing to escape her afternoon's engagement.

Their way led for a short distance along a splendid broad avenue that, starting at the park, stretched away down into the heart of the city. Its four rows of trees, drooping under their soft mantle of snow, extended far into the dim white distance.

"Toronto is a fine city," said Mr. Huntley proudly, "and just at this point one sees its best. Here are our legislative buildings, yonder a glimpse of our University, here a hospital, there a church and——"

"And here," said Elizabeth, unexpectedly turning a corner—"another aspect of the same city."

She had turned aside into a narrow alley, which, in but a few steps led into a scene of painful contrast to the avenue. It was the slum district—right in the center of the beautiful city—the worm at the heart of the flower. Here the streets were narrow and dirty. Noisy ragged children, Italian vendors, Jewish ragpickers, slatternly women, and drunken men brushed against them as they passed.

"You should not have come this way, Miss Gordon," said Mr. Huntley solicitously, as he guided her across the black muck of the crossing, to which the snow had already been converted. "I hope you do not come here alone."

"I was never here before," said Elizabeth. "How terrible to live in comfort with this at one's back door, as it were." She shuddered.

Mr. Huntley looked slightly disturbed. "I am glad you are not one of those sentimental young ladies of St. Stephen's, who have been seized with the romantic idea that they can overturn conditions here. These people are better left alone."

Elizabeth was silent. They had just passed a wee ragged girl, whose blue, pinched face and hungry eyes made her sick with pity. The child was calling shrilly to an equally ragged boy who had paused on the sidewalk a little ahead of them. The youngster was absorbed in tormenting a feeble old man, whose little wagon with its load of soiled clothing he had just overturned into the mud of the street. The man was making pitiful attempts to gather up his bundle, but his poor old frame, stiffened and twisted with rheumatism, refused to bend. The urchin shouted with laughter, and his victim leaned against a wall whimpering helplessly. The sight of him hurt Elizabeth even more than the little girl's hungry face. She thought of her own father, and felt a hint of the anguish it would mean if ho should one day be ill-treated. The tears came, blinding her eyes so that she stumbled along the rotten sidewalk.

A young woman suddenly appeared from the door of a hovel that stood half-way down an alley just across the way. She had a ragged shawl over her head, her thin cotton shirt flapped about her meager limbs, and her feet were incased in men's boots. She ran swiftly to the old man, routed the urchin, and with many pitying, comforting words began gathering up the contents of the wagon. Elizabeth longed to stay and help and comfort them both; she listened eagerly, after they had passed, to catch what the girl was saying. "Poor grandaddy," she heard again and again. "Poor grandaddy, I shouldn't have let ye go alone."

There was something about her that drew Elizabeth to her. She wanted to stop and thank her for the assurance that love could blossom so beautifully even in this barren spot. Her voice, too, haunted her. Where had she heard that soft Highland accent before? It seemed to bring some vague memory of childhood. She glanced up at her companion, wondering if she dared step back and speak to the pair.

But Mr. Huntley did not seem to have noticed them. He was looking across the street with an air of half-amused interest.

"I'm rather glad you brought me around this way, Miss Gordon," he said, the amusement in his face deepening. "I own some property here that I haven't seen for years." He waved his cane in the direction of the row of houses across the street. Elizabeth looked back, the old man and the girl were disappearing down the alley into one of them.

"They are a hard lot, my tenants. If some of the young ladies of St. Stephen's experienced a little of the difficulty my agent has collecting rent, or came across one fraction of the fraud and trickery these people can practice, their philanthropy would cool slightly."

Elizabeth was too much moved to speak. It hurt her so to find him unsympathetic. To her unaccustomed eyes the signs of want on all sides were unspeakably pitiful, and in the face of it his indifference was callous and cruel. She struggled to keep back the tears, tears of both sorrow and indignation.

They had emerged into the region of broad, clean streets now, and her companion, glancing down at her, saw she was disturbed. He strove to raise her spirits by cheerful talk, but Elizabeth refused to respond. She looked so depressed he suddenly thought of a little surprise he had in store for her, which would be likely to make her happy.

"By the way, what is your brother going to do when he graduates next spring?" he inquired.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth, reviving somewhat at the mention of John. This was a subject upon which the brother and sister had had much anxious discussion. It was imperative that he should earn some money immediately, to pay his college debts, for this last year was to be partially on borrowed money.

"John's just worrying about that," she added frankly. "He'd like to get some experience in a hospital, but he really ought to be earning money."

"They want a young medical this spring up on this new North American line I'm interested in. There are hundreds of men on the construction. Ask him if he'd like that. It is a good thing, lots of practice, and more pay."

Elizabeth looked up at him, her eyes aglow with gratitude. To help John was to do her the greatest favor. She had heard him again and again expressing a desire for some such appointment.

"Oh, how can I thank you?" she cried, the light returning to her face. "It would mean everything to John. You are so kind." She gave him another glance, that set his middle-aged heart beating just a trifle faster.

They had reached the steps of St. Stephen's by this time, and Elizabeth's leave-taking was warmly grateful. Yes, she would be home in the evening when he called, she promised.

As she ascended the steps of the church she was reminded by the booming of the bell in the city tower that she was half an hour early. Why not run back to No. 15 and tell John the good news? His afternoon lectures had stopped and he would probably be studying. She turned quickly and ran down the steps. As she did so she was surprised to meet several young men and women ascending them. Surely they could not all belong to Miss Kendall's dramatic troupe, she reflected, as she hurried away.

John was in his room and alone, and when he heard Elizabeth's news he caught her round the waist and danced about until Mrs. Dalley sent up by one of her maids to inquire if them young men didn't care if the plaster in the ceiling below all fell down? The dancers collapsed joyously upon the sofa, and Elizabeth, looking at John's glowing face, felt what happiness might be hers one day if she had wealth enough to help her family to their desires.

"This is the bulliest thing that ever happened," cried John boyishly. "Say, he thinks all manner of things about you, Lizzie, I can see."

Elizabeth blushed. "Nonsense. It's your profound learning and great medical skill that attracted him."

"When did he tell you?"

"Just this afternoon. I was going to the church to a committee meeting of Miss Kendall's—the church caller, John, just think, haven't I the courage of a V. C.?—and he walked there with me—and oh, John, we came through Newton Street, and it's an awful place. I never dreamed there was such poverty right near us. Isn't it wicked to eat three meals a day and be well dressed, when people are starving right at one's door?"

"I suppose some of those poor beggars do have a kind of slim diet, but it's half their own fault. Don't you go and get batty over them, now. Mac has it so bad I can't stand another."

"Stuart? What about him?"

"He's got into some kind of mission business down in that hole; but don't tell him I let it out. He's the kind that would cut his right hand off if it hinted its doings to his left hand."

"Why, what does he do there?" Elizabeth's voice had a wistful note. This was just what she should have been doing, but Charles Stuart had never appealed to her for help. He knew better, she told herself, with some bitterness.

"Oh, all sorts of stunts—boys' club and Sunday school; everything from nursing babies to hammering drunks that abuse their wives. He keeps me and old Bagsley humping, too. It's good practice, but the pay's all glory. Bags has about a dozen patients down there now."

Elizabeth was silent; that old, old feeling of despair that used to come over her when John and Charles Stuart disappeared down the lane, leaving her far behind, was stealing over her. They had gone away ahead again, and she—she was no use in the world, and so was left to drift.

"I suppose he's going to be a minister after all, then," she said at last, rising and wrapping her fur around her slim throat. "Mother MacAllister will be happy."

"I don't know if he is. He's got all muddled up in some theological tangle. Knox fellows come over here and they argue all night sometimes, and Mac doesn't seem to know where he's at in regard to the Bible." John laughed easily. "Never mind, Betsey, I'm acting physician to the new British North American Railroad, and you're a brick, so you are!"

But the light did not return to Elizabeth's face. John followed her down to the door, bidding her an affectionate and grateful farewell.

"This is better than putting up my shingle in Forest Glen and living in old Sandy's house, eh?" he asked laughingly, as they parted.

Elizabeth smiled and nodded good-by. John had always prophesied dolefully that he would set up a practice in Forest Glen with her as his housekeeper. They would live in old Sandy McLachlan's log house, for he was sure he could not afford anything better, and it would suit Lizzie's style of housekeeping.

The reference to the old place cleared some misty memory that had been struggling for recognition in Elizabeth's brain. She stopped short on the street—"Eppie!" she said, almost aloud. Could it be Eppie she had seen on Newton Street, and could that old man be her grandfather?



CHAPTER XVI

"THE MORNING COMETH"

She dismissed the notion, the next moment, as absurd; but it returned again and again, each time more persistent; slowly she once more ascended the steps of the church absorbed in the thought.

At one side of the wide vestibule, a door led into a long hall. In one of the many rooms opening from it Miss Kendall was holding her meeting. The door was heavy and swung slowly. Just before Elizabeth opened it sufficiently to gain a view of the hall, she heard her own name spoken in Miss Kendall's decisive tones.

"Pardon me, Miss Withrow, but you are mistaken. The Miss Gordon you have reference to is a student or milliner or something; we certainly haven't asked her to join us. I know because I met her over on Seaton Crescent when I was calling on those tiresome boarders. Mrs. Jarvis's Miss Gordon is quite another person, I don't know her personally, but they say Mr. Huntley is quite enamored and——"

Elizabeth shrank back closing the door softly. Here was a predicament indeed! The approaching swish of silken skirts sounded along the hall, and she ran noiselessly up the carpeted stairway looking for some place of concealment. The door leading into the auditorium confronted her, and shaking with silent laughter she pushed it open and slipped noiselessly within. A soft hushed movement like one breathing in sleep filled the great space. She paused, startled—the church was crowded.

Away up in the dim pulpit at the other end a man was speaking. Elizabeth dropped breathlessly and embarrassed into the pew nearest the door. She had no idea what this gathering was for or who the speaker was. Mrs. Jarvis attended the regular Sunday morning services in St. Stephen's, whenever a headache did not prevent, and Elizabeth accompanied her. But beyond this the girl had not the slightest connection with any of the activities of this religious body of which she was a member. Otherwise she might have known that this was a great gathering of students, many of whom were young volunteers for the army of the King that was fighting sin far away in the stronghold of heathenism. She would have heard, too, that the man up there in the pulpit, with every eye set unwaveringly upon him, was one who had stirred the very pulses of her native land by his call to the laymen of the church to a wider vision of their duty to the world. But poor Elizabeth knew very little more about this great movement than if she had been one of the heathen in whose behalf it was being made.

And perhaps because she had been so long shut away from the great things of life, for which her heart vainly cried, her very soul went out to the words of the speaker. He was nearing the end of his address, and was making his appeal to those young people to invest their lives in this great work for God and humanity.

Looking back upon that scene afterwards, it almost seemed miraculous to Elizabeth, that the first words of his message she heard were from that prophetic poem that had always moved her to tears in her childhood days when her father read them at family worship.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing." This was the promise to those who responded to their Master's call. The wildernesses of the earth, the sad and solitary places, were to be made glad and beautiful at their coming.

And then Elizabeth grasped the purpose of the gathering. She read it as much in the sea of eager upturned faces as in the speaker's words. She knew, too, that he was not speaking to her. She had no part nor lot in this great onward march of the world. She belonged to those who were clogging the wheels of progress. A feeling of intense envy seized her, all her old yearning for love and service came over her with twofold strength, and with it the bitter remembrance that she had wasted her life in worse than idleness.

The low, deep, appealing voice went on, and she bowed her head in humiliation. But surely he was speaking to her now. "Do you want to find Jesus Christ?" he was asking. "Have you lost your hold on Him? Then go out where the drunkard and the orphan and the outcast throng in their sin and misery—you will find Him there!"

For a brief space Elizabeth heard no further word. That message was especially for her. For she had lost her hold upon Him, and with Him, she realized it for the first time, she had lost the joy and power of life. She had been very near Him many times—when her father read of His love and sacrifice, or Mother MacAllister showed her the beauty of His service. The Vision Beautiful had been hers, and she had refused to go out at the call of the hungry, and so it had not stayed.

And now a new vision—the tormenting picture of what she might have made of her life was being shown her through the magic of the speaker's words. "The King's Highway," he called his address. "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." He pictured to their eager young eyes, what that Way would be for the world, when they prepared it for the coming of their King.

"Would they make this way of holiness accessible to someone?" he asked. "To those wayfaring men who were sure to err unless guided thereto."

He ended with the Prophet's words, and the choir, away up in their brightly lighted gallery arose and burst forth into the glorious words that closed the vision.

"Then shall the redeemed of the Lord come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall receive joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

Elizabeth could bear no more. She arose, the tears blinding her, and slipped quietly out. She had seen Jean looking over the gallery railing with serious eyes, and Stuart standing by a pillar with a group of fellow-students, his face pale and tense. She dared not risk meeting them or anyone else she knew. She hurried down the stairs and out along the street struggling for her self-control. Half consciously her footsteps turned in the direction of that little street where she had seen the girl that looked like Eppie. The tumult of self-accusation within drove her to immediate action. She would go down there at once and see that girl, and help and comfort her, and perhaps—even though she had wandered so far away, she might prove the speaker's words true—she might find the Vision return. Choking back her sobs she hurried along. The memory of the sad sight, that pitiful ill-clad girl striving to comfort the still more pitiful old man driving her forward as if with a whip.

The twilight had fallen and the dingy street looked even more gloomy. She was terrified by the glimpses of rough-looking men and slatternly women, by the loud voices and the sounds of violence that issued from many of the houses. But her fear did not once make her think of turning back. Her soul now recognized the fact that there were things more to be dreaded in the life of uselessness from which she was fleeing.

She turned down the dark alley from which she had seen the girl emerge, stumbling over heaps of garbage. Even in her terror she had a faint sense of grim enjoyment at the thought of how horrified Mr. Huntley would be could he know. She almost hated him for his solicitous care of her when she compared it with his indifference to these ragged shrill-voiced women about her. She paused at length before one of the low hovels and timidly knocked. At the same moment the door suddenly opened and a young man came lounging heavily out. By the light from the doorway Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a heavy brutal face, as he slouched past her. She started back, about to run, but stopped. Just beyond him in the doorway stood the girl she sought. The pale light of a flickering gas jet above her head revealed her face. There was no mistaking her now. Elizabeth forgot her fears and went forward with a joyful little run.

"Eppie!" she cried, "oh, Eppie! Do you know me?"

The girl stood staring.

"Is it?—Is it you—Lizzie?" she whispered.

"Yes—it's Lizzie. May I come in, Eppie?"

The girl shrank back as though afraid, but there was a pleading look in her hungry eyes, a gleam of something like hope that drew Elizabeth in. She stepped down into the chilly little room. The flickering gas jet shed a pale circle of light around the wretched place. At one glance every detail of the sordid surroundings seemed to be stamped upon Elizabeth's brain; the low bed in the corner under the sloping roof, where the old man lay, covered by a ragged quilt, the rusty fireless stove, with the water falling drip, drip upon it from the melting snow on the sagging roof, the old cupboard with its cracked dishes and its smell of moldy bread. And yet she looked only at her lost school-mate, at the hungry, frightened eyes and the white thin face. She saw, too, how the girl shrank from her, fearful and yet hopeful, and a great flood of pity surged over her. She took both the thin rough hands in her delicately gloved ones and tried to smile.

"Oh, Eppie!" she cried, "where have you been this long, long time, my dear?"

The effect of her words alarmed her. Eppie clutched her hands and burst into a storm of sobs. Frightened and dismayed, and at a loss what to do, Elizabeth blindly did the very best thing. She put her arms about the shaking little figure and held it close. She drew her down to an old box that stood by the damp wall, and the two old school-mates, so widely separated by fate, clung to each other and sobbed.

"Oh, Lizzie! oh, Lizzie," the girl kept repeating her friend's name over and over. "You always promised you'd come and see me, and I thought you'd forgot me—you being such a grand lady. I thought you'd forgot me!"

"Eppie," whispered Elizabeth, "don't! oh, don't! I wanted to find you—long ago—but I didn't know where you were. Hush, dear, don't cry so, you will make yourself ill. See, you will waken your grandfather."

She stopped at this, choking back her sobs. "It's because I'm so glad you came, Lizzie, and you such a fine lady," she whispered. "I hadn't nobody left." She sat up and wiped away her tears on her ragged apron.

"I seen you at that boarding-house where Charles Stuart was," she continued, "but you looked so grand I wouldn't let on to you I was there. I thought you wouldn't want me. And I wouldn't let him tell even Jean. But the woman wouldn't keep me, I was no good, and I was ashamed to tell Charles Stuart I'd gone, he was so awful good, and so me and grandaddy moved in here and I didn't let on, and I got washing; but the lady didn't pay me, and oh, Lizzie, grandaddy's sick and I—couldn't help it."

"Couldn't help what?" asked Elizabeth, puzzled over the incoherent recital. "Tell me all about it, Eppie."

"Tell me, dear," she patted her as though she had been a hurt child.

So Eppie began at the day they came to Toronto and told their whole sad history. They had lived with her father for a time. He had written them to come, for he had a little grocery store and was doing well. He had been kind and good at first, and they had been happy. But he had began to drink again—drink had always been his trouble, and at last everything had to be sold and he went away West, leaving her and her grandfather alone. Then commenced a sorrowful story—the story of incompetence struggling with greed and want. They would have starved she declared only for Charles Stuart. It was he was the good kind lad. He had met her on the street one day last autumn and for a long while he had done everything to help them. He had found a place where grandaddy could board, and got work for her again and again. But she had always failed. "I tried, Lizzie," she said, sitting before her friend with hanging head, twisting the corner of her ragged apron pitifully, "but I'd never been learned how to do things, and I guess I was awful slow. When the ladies scolded I would just be forgetting everything, and then they would send me away. And when Charles Stuart got me a place at Mrs. Dalley's and I lost it, too, I was that ashamed I couldn't tell him. So we moved down here to this house, for I'd saved a little money, and grandaddy was pleased because he said it was a home of our own again, and he didn't seem to mind the water coming in on the bed. But the rent's awful dear, and the man that owns it he said he'd send me to jail if I didn't pay him next time. I hadn't any money last time, because the lady I worked for wouldn't pay me. Oh, Lizzie, don't you think rich people ought to pay folks that work for them?"

"Who didn't pay you?" asked Elizabeth, her eyes burning.

"Miss Kendall. She's a grand lady and works in the church and Charles Stuart asked her to let me work for her. But she'd always tell me to come back some other day when I went and asked her for money, and next week they're going to turn us out. Oh, Lizzie, do you mind yon Mr. Huntley that put grandaddy and me off our farm? He owns this house and now he's putting us out again! Grandaddy says God is good and kind and that He'll never forsake us. But I don't think He cares about us, or He wouldn't let all these awful things happen to us." She had been growing more and more excited as the recital continued. Her cheeks burned and she plucked nervously at her apron. Now a desperate look came into her eyes, her voice rose shrilly and Elizabeth gazed at her in terror.

"Did you see that man that was here when you came?" Elizabeth nodded, a new terror clutching her heart. Until now she had not realized that there might be far fiercer beasts of prey than even the wolves of poverty following Eppie's footsteps. "He's a bad man, Lizzie, but he's been kind to me. He gave me money yesterday or grandaddy would a' starved. Bad people are better to you than good people. He gave me money if I'd promise to go and keep house for him. And I'm going—to-morrow—and I'll get bad too—everybody round here's bad and I don't care any more——"

She burst into violent sobbing again, and Elizabeth could only hold her tight and say over and over in helpless woe, "Oh, Eppie, my poor Eppie." For of the two girls clinging together in the damp little hovel, perhaps the more fortunate one was experiencing a greater depth of despair. A very chaos of darkness had descended upon Elizabeth's soul. She was taking her first glimpse of that world of misery and shame into which Eppie was being so ruthlessly driven, and her whole soul recoiled. To her excited imagination the girl in her arms was the sacrifice offered for her own comfort. It seemed as though the price of the boxes of roses and candy that were lavished upon her, had been wrung from those poor helpless hands now clutching her so desperately. And Mrs. Jarvis too; Elizabeth arraigned her before the ruthless tribunal of her awakened conscience. Why had she let all this happen, when she could have prevented it with a word?

Suddenly Eppie stopped sobbing and raised her head listening. Elizabeth looked at her and followed her eyes to the bed. The old man had made a slight movement, and uttered a strange, choking cough. His granddaughter ran to him with incoherent murmurs of endearment. Elizabeth following tenderly, the girl turned down the ragged coverlid, and laid her hand on his wrinkled forehead. There was the stamp of death on his peaceful old face.

"What's the matter?" whispered Elizabeth.

Eppie turned upon her wild eyes of terror. "I don't know. There's something wrong with him. Oh, what'll I do? What'll I do?"

"I'll get a doctor," cried Elizabeth, darting towards the door. Her heavy fur stole slipped from her shoulders, but she took no notice of it. She fled out into the night and went stumbling once more over the garbage heaps of the dark alley.

Mr. MacAllister had come in late for his supper that evening, and Mrs. Dalley's latest dining-room maid had served him with an air of cold reproach that almost gave that kind-hearted young man an attack of indigestion. He hurried away from the uncomfortable atmosphere, and found that his room-mate had gone out. He did not go to his books at once, but sat in their one easy-chair, his hands deep in his pockets, staring at his boots. John always declared the Pretender drew his inspiration therefrom, for after any prolonged study of those goodly-sized appendages he always arose and accomplished something startling. This time his meditation was longer than usual; his mind was on the lecture of that afternoon. Finally he arose and drew from the table a writing-pad. He wrote a long letter, and as he sealed it his dark eyes shone. For he knew that away up in a little northern valley, a woman with a sweet wistful face, who had waited for the message that letter contained, many long anxious years, was still waiting for it, and its coming would fill her heart with joy and thankfulness.

He had just finished when he heard his chum come thundering up the stairs. He looked up with laughing expectation. He knew by the manner of John's ascent that there was something grand and glorious doing.

"What's up now? You came up that stairs like an automobilly-goat. Is the house on fire?"

John leaped across the room, threw his cap upon the floor, and had poured out his good news before he got his overcoat off.

"Isn't that the dandiest luck?" he finished up. "I've just been down at Huntley's office. He telephoned just before supper. And I'm to have all expenses paid beside, and nothing but Dagoes and Chinamen to dope." He had taken off his boots by this time and was rummaging in the bedroom for his slippers, never pausing a moment in his talk.

"Huntley's a gentleman all right, isn't he? Of course, it's all 'cause he's so sweet on Lizzie; but I'm mighty thankful his sweetness came in my direction. A chap like you, with one of the best farms in Ontario at his back, can't have any idea what it's like to go to college on wind. Say, won't it seem funny to have little Lizzie married to that chap. She wouldn't confess to-day, but I could see there was something up."

He paused at last, for it was being borne in upon his joy-blended senses that his chum, who had always heretofore rejoiced when he rejoiced, was making no response.

"It'll be good practice for my first year, don't you think?" he asked rather lamely.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so." Charles Stuart's answer was even lamer.

John emerged from his room bearing the captured slippers.

"You're not sick, are you, old man?" he asked.

"Sick? No! What makes you ask such a fool question?"

"Why, you're looking perfectly green round the gills. You're not going out, are you?"

For the Pretender had sprung up and was dragging on his boots. He was finding it impossible to pretend any longer.

John watched him anxiously, all uncomprehending.

"Better let me take your temperature, Mac. Diphtheria's fairly booming in your year. Packard has it now."

"Nonsense! I'm all right. You meds. are always on the trail of death and disease."

"I thought you said you were going to plug to-night."

Charles Stuart was savagely dragging on his overcoat. "Well, I'm not, I'm going out."

"You haven't a pain or an ache anywhere, have you?"

The patient might have answered truthfully that he was conscious only of one great ache through his whole being, but instead he answered shortly: "Pain? Your granny! No, of course not!"

The door slammed soundingly behind him, and John sat gazing at it until the house shook with another tremendous bang, this time from the street door.

"Well, I'll be——" said the young man, and then paused, feeling how utterly hopeless it was to find a word expressive of his feelings. In all the years of their life-long comradeship he had never known Charles Stuart to behave in such a manner. "He's gone batty!" he said at last to the closed door, and then slowly and meditatively he returned to his books. "He's fixing for dip. all right," he added; "I'll have Bags in to overhaul him when he comes back." Then, with the satisfaction of a medical student who has correctly diagnosed and prescribed for a case, he settled himself comfortably in the easy-chair and went to work.

Meanwhile the supposed victim of incipient diphtheria was striding down the street as though pursued by that and every other fell disease. A worse malady had seized him, and he was calling himself a fool that he had been so blind to its symptoms. Life without the sunshine of Elizabeth's presence was a problem he had never faced. That he and she belonged to each other since the beginning of time had always been his deep-rooted conviction. And now he had lost her, and had realized it for the first time on the very day when he had found the true glorious meaning of life. His senses were numbed by the irony of his fate. He was conscious only of the fact that he had received a blow, and that he must move swiftly and more swiftly. He was whirling round a corner when he heard his name called sharply. He stopped short in mingled joy and fear. Someone was crossing the street towards him with headlong speed. It was she herself!—Elizabeth—coming to him with outstretched hands. He went swiftly to meet her.

"Lizzie! What is it?" he cried, catching the hands in his.

"Oh, Charles Stuart!" she cried with a sob of relief, "come—quick! I've found Eppie!"



CHAPTER XVII

DAWN CLOUDS

"And so you see; Aunt Margaret, I could not possibly have acted otherwise. I had to leave it all."

Miss Gordon sat a trifle straighter in her stiff chair. "I fear I must confess I cannot see it as you do at all, Elizabeth. You say yourself that Mrs. Jarvis would have been willing to pay Eppie's expenses up here, or support her in the city, and why you should have made her the cause of such an eccentric act I cannot understand."

Elizabeth looked out of the window in silent misery. Before her, Tom Teeter's fields stretched away bare and brown, with patches of snow in the hollows and the fence-corners. Rain had fallen the night before, a cold March rain, freezing as it fell, and clothing every object of the landscape in an icy coat that glittered and blazed in the morning light. But the sun and the fresh wind, dancing up from the south and bringing a fragrant hint of pussy-willows from the creek banks, were causing this fairy world of glass to dissolve. Such a glorious world as it was seemed too radiant and unreal to last. There was a sound of pouring water and a rattle as of shattered glass as the airy things tumbled to pieces.

The fences along Champlain's Road and the lane were made of polished silver rails that gave back the sunbeams in blinding flashes. The roofs of the houses and barns were covered with glass, the trees were loaded with diamonds. From the east windows of the dining-room where Elizabeth sat by the fire, she could see the orchard and the out-houses. They were all transformed, the former into a fairy forest of glass, the latter into crystal palaces. Even the old pump had been changed into a column of silver.

The breeze, dancing up over The Dale, set the fairy forest of glass swaying, with a silken rustle. On every swinging branch millions of jewels flashed in the sunlight. With a soft crashing sound some tree would let fall its priceless burden in a dazzling rain of diamonds. Crash! and the silver roof of the barn slid down into the yard, collapsing in a flood of opals. The whole world seemed unreal and unstable, toppling to pieces and vanishing in the rising mist.

To Elizabeth it seemed like her new radiant world of usefulness, which she had been building on her journey from Toronto. It was falling to pieces about her ears, before the breath of her aunt's disapproval.

The glorious freshness of the breeze, the dazzling blue of the sky, and the quivering, flashing radiance of the bejeweled world set all her city-stifled nerves tingling to be up and away over the wind-swept fields and the wet lanes. But she sat in the old rocker by the dining-room fire and clasped her hands close in her efforts to keep back the tears. This homecoming had been so sadly different from all others. She had not been welcome. The Dale and every dear old familiar nook and corner of the surrounding fields had seemed to open their arms to her and Eppie when John Coulson brought them out from Cheemaun three days before. Her father had received them with unquestioning joy. Mary and the boys had been hilarious in their welcome. Her aunt alone had met her with a greeting tempered by doubts. Notwithstanding the years of worldly success to Elizabeth's credit, Miss Gordon still lived in some fear lest the wild streak reappear. She had reserved her judgment, however, until her niece should explain, and the opportunity for a quiet talk had come upon the third morning after their arrival. As soon as breakfast was over, and the early morning duties attended to, Miss Gordon took her embroidery—Mary did the darning now—to the dining-room fire and called Elizabeth to her.

The old stone house was very quiet. Sarah Emily's successor, a shy little maid from an orphan home, was moving noiselessly about the kitchen under Mary's able supervision. Jamie was far on the road to Cheemaun High School, his books slung over his back, and Mr. Gordon was shut in his study. Eppie lay upstairs in the big airy room that had once been the boys'. Even where she sat Elizabeth could catch the echo of her racking cough.

Miss Gordon seated herself comfortably before the fire, bidding Elizabeth do the same.

They had not yet had a moment to talk about the future, she said pleasantly. There had been so much to say about poor little Eppie. But they must discuss Elizabeth's own affairs now. First, how long could she remain at home? She hoped Mrs. Jarvis did not want her to return immediately?

Elizabeth felt, rather than saw, the look of sharp inquiry her aunt bent upon her. There was no hope of putting off the explanation any longer. She turned towards her with a sinking heart. It had always been impossible to explain her actions to Aunt Margaret. And now, though she was a woman, Elizabeth felt a return of her old childish dread of being misunderstood.

She began carefully—away back at the resolution her young heart had made to use her influence with Mrs. Jarvis to help Eppie. Of her higher aims and aspirations she could not speak; and because she was forced to do so, to be silent concerning her yearnings for a higher life, and the revelation that had come to her that wonderful afternoon in St. Stephen's; because of this, even to her own ears, her story did not sound convincing. Her course of conduct did not appear so inevitable as it had before she faced her aunt.

When she had bidden Mrs. Jarvis farewell, declaring she could no longer endure the life of fashion and idleness which they lived, and had buried poor old Sandy and taken Eppie and fled home with her, she had been as thoroughly convinced as Charles Stuart, her aider and abettor, that this was the only line of conduct to pursue. To Elizabeth's mind it had appeared beyond doubt that, from the day her benefactress, acting through Mr. Huntley, had allowed Eppie to be driven from her home, that those two had been directly responsible for all the girl's misery. And this one case had revealed to her the awful train of innocent victims that must surely follow in the path of selfish idleness which Mrs. Jarvis pursued, or that of money-making followed by Mr. Huntley. And Elizabeth, too, was of their world, eating of their bread, accepting all the luxury that came from this wrong-doing. This was the thought that had stung her into such headlong action. She had told Mrs. Jarvis the whole truth, offending her bitterly thereby, and had escaped without even a word of farewell to Mr. Huntley. But now, in the telling of it all, she seemed to see herself each moment growing more culpable and ridiculous in her aunt's eyes.

And when she finished her story with an appeal, she was met by that old, old sentence that had been so many times pronounced upon her:

"I cannot understand you."

Elizabeth did not quite understand herself. She knew only that an inner voice—an echo from the thrilling words spoken in the church—had commanded and she could not but obey. The King's Highway was calling for her—she was needed to make it smooth for someone's feet. That voice had promised great things, too,—that the wilderness and the solitary places should be glad because of her coming, that the rose of Sharon should blossom by her side—that, because of her, some little of the sorrow and sighing of this sad world should flee away. And now, instead, there were thorns along the pathway, and she had brought distress upon one she loved.

If she could only explain, she said to herself in despair. She looked out of the west window away down Champlain's Road with its swaying, towering hedge of bejeweled elms, to the old farm-house against the pines of Long Hill. Mother MacAllister would understand without any explanation. If she were only telling Mother MacAllister!

"It seems so unnecessary, your leaving Mrs. Jarvis," Miss Gordon continued. "Someone else could have brought Eppie. And what we are to do with her I cannot tell. You cannot but see that she is consumptive, and it would be folly for us to allow her to be in the same home with Mary. Even you must understand that Mary is in danger of that disease, Elizabeth."

The girl's face blanched. "I will take complete care of her, aunt," she said hastily. "Mary need not go near her. But both Mr. Bagsley and Mrs. Jarvis's doctor said Eppie would soon get better with fresh air and good nursing."

"One never can tell with a disease like that. And as for good nursing—I see clearly that as usual the burden must fall upon me." Miss Gordon sighed deeply and hunted in her basket for her spool. "It is quite out of the question for you to undertake nursing her. I could not allow it in any case, but it would be unfair to Mrs. Jarvis. She must expect your return any day?" She looked up inquiringly, and Elizabeth's clasped hands clenched each other again. She made a desperate attempt to be brave, and turned squarely towards her aunt. The very necessity of the case drove her to take courage.

"Aunt Margaret," she said deliberately, "you do not quite understand yet. I—I cannot—I am not going back to Mrs. Jarvis—any more."

Miss Gordon dropped the linen square she was embroidering, but recovered it instantly. Even in the shock of dismay, she was dignified and self-restrained.

"Elizabeth," she said with a dreadful calm, "what is this you are telling me?"

"I cannot go back," repeated the girl with the courage of despair. "I am sorry—oh, sorrier than I can possibly tell you, Aunt Margaret, that I have brought all this trouble upon you. But I had to leave. I explained to Mrs. Jarvis how I felt—that it seemed as if we both had profited at Eppie's expense, and that as she had allowed Eppie to be turned out of her home, I felt as if she were responsible—as well as myself. And so I came away. I couldn't live that kind of life after seeing Eppie's home—and what she was almost driven to. Oh, Aunt Margaret, can't you understand that I couldn't!"

Miss Gordon was staring at her in a way that robbed Elizabeth of her small stock of courage. "Wait," she said, raising her hand to stop the incoherent flow. "Do I understand you to say that you—you insulted Mrs. Jarvis—and left her?"

"I didn't mean to insult her," whispered Elizabeth with dry lips. "I—I felt I was as much to blame as she—and I said so."

"And Mr. Huntley? What of him?" The girl looked up suddenly, a wave of indignation lending a flash to her gray eyes.

"Aunt Margaret, he owned the house Eppie lived in!" she cried, as though it were a final condemnation.

Miss Gordon waved her aside.

"And he was ready to offer you marriage. Mrs. Jarvis told me so in her last letter. Elizabeth,—do you at all comprehend what a disastrous thing you have done?"

Elizabeth looked out of the window in dumb despair. Miss Gordon arose, and, crossing the room, closed the door leading into the hall. In all the years in which she had seen her aunt disturbed over her wrong-doing, Elizabeth had never witnessed her so near losing her self-control. The sight alarmed her.

Miss Gordon came back to her seat and threw her work aside. She faced her niece, clasping and unclasping her long slender hands, until her heavy, old-fashioned rings made deep marks in the flesh.

"Elizabeth," she said with an effort at calm, "the only possible excuse that can be made for your conduct is that you must have been out of your mind when you acted so. If you realized what you were doing, you have acted criminally. You have brought this consumptive girl here, and endangered Mary's life, just when I felt she was beginning to be strong. You have destroyed John's prospects. He cannot possibly accept this position, since you have treated Mr. Huntley in this fashion. You have utterly ruined your own chances in life. And what chances you have had! Never was a girl so fortunate as you. But you have all your life deliberately flung aside every piece of good fortune that came your way. And wait,"—as Elizabeth strove to speak—"this is not the worst. You have never known that we live here in The Dale merely by Mrs. Jarvis's favor. Your father has no deed for this property, no more than old Sandy McLachlan had for his. He might claim it by law, now,—but if Mrs. Jarvis asks us to leave, we must do so. Thank Heaven, some of the Gordons have pride! And that she will ask us now, after the outrageous manner in which you have met all her generosity, I have not the slightest doubt. We shall all be turned out of our home, and you will bring your father's gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave."

She arose and walked up and down, wringing her hands. Her extravagant words and actions were so pregnant with genuine grief and despair, that they smote Elizabeth's heart with benumbing blows. Mary, John, her aunt, and now the best beloved of all—her father! She was bringing ruin upon them all! Totally unaccustomed to deliberate thinking, she was unable to view the situation calmly, and took every accusation of her aunt's literally.

"Aunt Margaret!" she cried desperately, moved more by the sight of the stately woman's abandon than by the thought of her own shortcomings. "Oh, Aunt Margaret,—don't! It may not be so bad! And can't you see I didn't mean to do wrong? Oh, I truly didn't. You always taught us to do our duty first. We knew it was the sense of duty that kept you here when you wanted to go back to Edinburgh. And I felt it was my duty to bring Eppie and come away. Oh, if you could only have seen the place where poor old Sandy died! And Eppie need not stay here. Tom and Granny Teeter want to take her—and the Cleggs, and,—oh, if you'll only forgive me!" Elizabeth broke down completely. She had made a horrible mistake somehow—she did not understand how, any more than she had understood in her childhood how she was always bringing sorrow upon her aunt.

Miss Gordon came and stood over her. She was once more calm and self-contained. "I can never forgive you, Elizabeth," she said deliberately, "until you have become reconciled to Mrs. Jarvis. Go back to her and beg her pardon for your conduct, and then come and ask mine."

She gathered up her work, and in her stateliest manner walked from the room. Elizabeth's first impulse was to fling herself upon the sofa in a passion of despair, but the remembrance of Eppie saved her. She sat a few minutes fighting for self-control, and praying for help, the first real prayer she had uttered for years. When she was sufficiently calm she went up to the room where Eppie lay with the March sunshine streaming over her pillow. Her eyes brightened at the sight of Elizabeth, but instantly the old look of dull despair came back. "You're a little better to-day, aren't you, dear?" Elizabeth asked, striving to be cheerful. Eppie nodded. "Yes, I'm better," she said drearily.

"And it's the loveliest day, Eppie. Why, we have glass trees in the lane, and it's so sunshiny. If you'll only hurry up and get strong, you'll be in time to pick the first May flowers that grow down by the old place."

"I think I'd rather not see it, Lizzie," said the sick girl. "Grandaddy and me used to talk by the hour about comin' back to Forest Glen. And I always wanted to get back that bad it made me sick. But now I think I'd sooner not see the old place, because he can't see it too."

Elizabeth's forced calm was forsaking her. The tears welled up in her eyes.

"Ye're not well yourself to-day, Lizzie," whispered Eppie. "What's troublin'?"

"Nothing you can help, dear," said Elizabeth hastily. "See, I'm going to get you some milk and then you must sleep." She fled from the room, and down the hall towards her own little bedroom. At the head of the stairs she met Mary carrying a covered dish. Mary was not ignorant of the turn affairs had taken, and her sympathy was all for her sister, for she would have welcomed any disaster that brought Lizzie home.

"I've made Eppie a custard," she said comfortingly. "I'll give it to her and you can go to see Mother MacAllister—she'll help." There was a secret bond of sympathy between the sisters that enabled Mary to divine that whatever was the nature of Elizabeth's trouble, Mother MacAllister would prove an excellent doctor.

But Elizabeth took the bowl. "No, I must attend to Eppie myself. Aunt Margaret does not want you to be with her. Never mind me, Mary dear, I've made a big muddle of things, as usual, but it can't be helped now. I shall go and see Mother MacAllister as soon as Eppie goes to sleep."

It was afternoon before Elizabeth found an opportunity to leave. Eppie's cough was painful and persistent, and Miss Gordon kept her room prostrated with a nervous headache. But late in the day both invalids sank into slumber, and finding nothing to do, Elizabeth flung on her coat and hat and fled downstairs.

She paused for a moment at the study door as she passed. Her father was sitting at his desk, over his accounts. Elizabeth approached and gently laid her hand upon his shoulder. It was a very thin, stooped shoulder now, and the hair on his bowed head was almost white. The mental picture of him being driven from The Dale through her act rose up before his daughter, and choked her utterance. Unaccustomed to any affectionate demonstrations as the Gordon training had made her, she could not even put her arms about his neck, as she longed to do, but stood by him silent, her hand on his shoulder.

"Well, Mary, child," he said in his absent way. Then he glanced up. "Eh, eh, it's little Lizzie? Well, well! Tuts, tuts, of course you are home again." He patted the hand on his shoulder affectionately.

"Are you glad to have me home, father?" whispered the girl when she could find her voice. It was a foolish question, but she longed to hear him say she was welcome.

"Glad?" he said. "Tuts, tuts, there's been no sunshine in the house since 'Lizbeth left. Eh, eh, indeed, I think I must just be sending word to that Mrs. Jarvis that I can't spare you any longer."

Elizabeth smiled wanly. She could not trust herself to speak again. She wanted to tell him she had come home to stay, and all that her homecoming meant. But she could not bear to trouble him. She merely patted his hand and slipped away before the tears could come.

The radiant morning had been succeeded by a dull afternoon. Every opal and diamond of the opening day had vanished. Low sullen clouds drifted over the dim-colored earth, and the wind was chill and dreary. Elizabeth's mood was in perfect accord with the grayness. She was about to give herself up to melancholy when, as she plodded up the muddy lane, she was hailed cheerfully from the road. The speaker was Auntie Jinit McKerracher, as she was still called, though correctly speaking, she had been for some time past Auntie Jinit Martin. Evidently her life as mistress of the red-brick house, from which she had just come, had been a success. Auntie Jinit looked every inch a woman of prosperous independence. Though the low clouds threatened rain, she wore a very gay and expensive bonnet, adorned with many pink roses that scarcely rivaled the color of her cheeks. The dress she held up in both hands, high above her trim gaiter-tops, was of black satin, much bedecked with heavy beaded trimming. From all appearances Auntie Jinit had, to use her own phrase, been "up sides" with Jake Martin, since her second marriage.

"And is yon yersel', Lizzie lass!" she cried heartily. "An' hoo's the pair bit lamb the day?"

"Eppie? Oh, not much better, Auntie Jinit. I'm afraid sometimes poor Eppie will never be better."

A sympathetic light shone in Auntie Jinit's bright eyes, and a shrewd, knowing pair of eyes they were. Not much escaped them, and her visit to The Dale the day before, coupled with Elizabeth's disappointed appearance, told her plainly that all was not well between the girl and her aunt.

"Tuts, lass," she said, "the warm weather 'll be along foreby, an' she'll pick up. Ah'll send oor Charlie ower wi' a bit jug o' cream ivery morn, an' it'll mak the pair thing fatten up a wee."

"Thank you, Auntie Jinit," said Elizabeth, the kindness bringing the tears to her eyes. "You're so good."

Mrs. Martin glanced at her sideways again. She had seen little of Elizabeth within the last few years, but her regard for the girl had never changed. She was as proud of her as though she had been her own daughter. Her eyes rested fondly on the slim, erect figure in the long gray coat, the smart, blue-gray velvet toque that matched the deep eyes beneath, and the soft, warm coils of the girl's brown hair. Lizzie was a lady and no mistake, Mrs. Martin declared to herself, a lady from her heart out to her clothes; and if that stuck up bit buddy at The Dale, who thought herself so much above her neighbors, had been worrying the lass, she, Auntie Jinit, was going to find out about it.

"Ye'll need help in lookin' after her," she said, feeling her way, "an' Mary's no able to gie it."

"That's just the trouble," said Elizabeth, responding to the sympathy. "I wouldn't mind caring for her myself entirely, but Aunt Margaret—I mean we all feel a little afraid for Mary—she's not strong. And, to tell you the truth, Auntie Jinit," she added hesitatingly, "I don't quite know what to do with poor Eppie."

"Hoots, lassie." Auntie Jinit's voice was very sympathetic. She was beginning to understand fully. "There's mair folk than ah can name that's jist wearyin' to tak the bairn. There's Tom Teeter——"

"But granny could never give her proper care, auntie, and it wouldn't be right to burden her."

"Weel, there's Noah Clegg, an' there's yer ain Mother MacAllister, aye, an' there's Jinit Martin, tae. We've a braw hoose ower by yonder, jist wearyin' to be filled. Ah'll tak the bit lass masel," she finished up suddenly, and closed her firm mouth with a resolute air.

Elizabeth looked at her in amazement and admiration. Jake Martin's house was the last place in Ontario she had supposed one would choose as a refuge for an orphan. Certainly Auntie Jinit had worked a revolution there.

"But there's Susie, Auntie Jinit, she's not as strong as Mary."

"Ah'll mind Susie, niver you fear, ma lass——"

"And—Mr. Martin?" hesitatingly.

Auntie Jinit laughed a gay, self-sufficient laugh. "Ah'll mind him tae," she said firmly. "Ah've sed to Jake mony's the time—there'll be some awfu' jedgment come upon this house, Jake Martin, because ye turned a bit helpless bairn an' a decreepit auld buddy oot o' their hame. An' Jake kens ah'm richt. He's been a bit worrit aboot it, an' ah'll jist pit it till him plain that if he taks Eppie it'll jist avert the wrath o' the Almichty."

Had Elizabeth's heart been a little less heavy, she must have enjoyed immensely this slight revelation of the change in affairs at the Martin home. Auntie Jinit had indeed worked a transformation there. The house was well-furnished and comfortable. The younger children were receiving an education; Charlie, one of the older sons, had returned to help his father on the farm; Susie, under the care of the best doctors in Cheemaun, was slowly creeping back to health and strength, and Mrs. Martin herself was the finest dressed woman who drove along Champlain's Road of a Saturday with her butter and eggs.

Something like a smile gleamed in Elizabeth's eyes, as she looked at her, tripping along by the muddy roadside.

"So don't ye worry, ma lass," she said. "It's a braw fine thing ye did, bringin' the pair stray lamb back to the auld place, an' berryin' the auld man; an' it's no fit ye'll be carryin' the burden. Beside, ye'll be leavin' us a' sune, ah doot. Yon braw leddy 'll no be able to spare ye lang."

Elizabeth slowly shook her head. "I don't intend going back," she whispered.

"Not gaun back!" Auntie Jinit's very figure was a living interrogation mark. But her penetrating glance saw the misery in the girl's face, and her pity, always more active than even her curiosity, made her pause. She tactfully changed the subject. She could afford to wait; for all things that were hidden within the surroundings of Forest Glen were certain to be revealed sooner or later to Mrs. Jake Martin.