owed him very
tenderly and proudly as he went, for still she seemed the elder of the
two. "Dear Dick," she thought, "I know how he feels. It will be hard
on him."

The wilderness surrounding the farm was no longer a source of
temptation to Dick; it was a refuge where he might find comfort and
peace. He had mastered his roving inclinations, and Peter Many-Names'
free faring no longer filled him with envy. But his struggles for
victory had almost imperceptibly saddened his irresponsible, sunny
nature. He was still the old Dick, but with a difference--a difference
that made for trustworthiness, patience, and power. The night, as he
stepped from the door into the dusk quiet of the garden, was hushed and
dark. Very soft misty clouds were drifting across the sky, with a
suggestion of ghostly trailing draperies in their movement; here and
there they opened to let a star look through, but the general aspect of
the slumbering world was of an infinite variety of shadow, rather than
of darkness relieved by any light. In an instant, the tumult and
merriment of that fire-lit room had become remote, and the great
silence of the night had enclosed him as with a palpable substance.

Yet, as he walked down the straggling garden, with its vegetables on
one side and its late flowers on the other, he was aware that the night
was not as quiet as he had thought at first. From far, quiet heights
of air incessant soft calls and uneasy, melancholy pipings came down to
him; and he knew that the dark above him was alive with great flocks of
migrating birds, calling ceaselessly to one another, travelling
ceaselessly on their way. Peter Many-Names could have told him what
birds they were, from the soft, sad echoes of their notes which floated
down to earth. But Peter was away in unknown wildernesses, exploring
on his own account; and the people at the homestead were rather glad
that it should be so.

Dick sighed a little as he leant over the gate at the foot of the
garden, watching the dim belt of grey forest before him. The memory of
his time of wandering was over with him, and he had spent many such
nights as this encamped with Peter Many-Names as his only comrade. His
sense of loneliness increased as he watched a far-off pallid line
advancing slowly across the sky, a line which marked the edge of the
field of ghostly cloud which was passing over. Beyond this edge the
sky was clear and dark, lighted by a few large stars.

When