the
children."

I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For
she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those
dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's
cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They
had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake
was full of feathers, Vesty."

She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made
her laugh.

"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of
the natural flavor."

"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?"

"Infinitely."

"Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear
the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands
trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes.
Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of
humanity, could she have looked like that!

"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be
jealous of me." I smiled at her.

She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we
are married?"

"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always."

"That is the way," she said.

"That is the way," I said, and left her.

When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he
read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for
love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He
gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes.

Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself
in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not
bear: he rose and filled a glass twice with brandy and drained it. He
ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved,
and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his
face.

"Mother, I have lost my girl!"

"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I
loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!"

"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am
your natural--natural--protector."

As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender
eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on
his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered
for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother