ess that engulfed the world. Bub fell
asleep in the soft air, and June sat and sat and sat. That was all
except for the stars that came out over the mountains and were slowly
being sprayed over the sky, and the pipings of frogs from the little
creek. Once the wind came with a sudden sweep up the river and she
thought she could hear the creak of Uncle Billy's water-wheel. It
smote her with sudden gladness, not so much because it was a relief
and because she loved the old miller, but--such is the power of
association--because she now loved the mill more, loved it because the
mill over in the Gap had made her think more of the mill at the mouth
of Lonesome Cove. A tapping vibrated through the railing of the porch on
which her cheek lay. Her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe. A
similar tapping sounded inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone
and Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither move. The old man rose
with a yawn.

"Time to lay down, June."

The girl rose. They all slept in one room. She did not dare to put on
her night-gown--her mother would see it in the morning. So she slipped
off her dress, as she had done all her life, and crawled into bed with
Bub, who lay in the middle of it and who grunted peevishly when
she pushed him with some difficulty over to his side. There were no
sheets--not even one--and the coarse blankets, which had a close acrid
odour that she had never noticed before, seemed almost to scratch her
flesh. She had hardly been to bed that early since she had left home,
and she lay sleepless, watching the firelight play hide and seek with
the shadows among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over the strings
of dried things that hung from the ceiling. In the other corner her
father and stepmother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was in a
nerveless slumber that would not come to her that night-tired and aching
as she was. So, quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out the
door to the porch. The moon was rising and the radiant sheen of it had
dropped down over the mountain side like a golden veil and was lighting
up the white rising mists that trailed the curves of the river. It sank
below the still crests of the pines beyond the garden and dropped on
until it illumined, one by one, the dewy heads of the flowers. She rose
and walked down the grassy path in her bare feet through the silent
fragrant emblems of the planter's thought of her--touching this flower
and that wit