and down his polished crutches. There was a soft,
troubled light in his eyes.

"Why, Nancy!"

His companion got up and moved a step backward. Her cheeks flushed a
pale, faded red.

"Oh, no," she said, with a quick, impatient movement of her head, "not
that, Joseph; that died years ago,--you are the same to me as other men,
excepting that you are Marg'et Ann's father. It's for _her_. It's the
only way I can live my life over again, by letting her live hers. I
don't know that it will be any better; but she will know, she will have
a certainty in place of a doubt. I don't know that my life would have
been any better; I know yours would not, and anyway it's all over now. I
know I can get on with the children, and I don't think people will
talk. I hope you're not going to object, Joseph. We've always been very
good friends."

He shook his head slowly.

"I don't see how I can, Nancy. It's very good of you. Perhaps," he
added, looking at her with a wistful desire for contradiction,--"perhaps
I've been a little selfish about Marg'et Ann."

"I don't think you meant to be, Joseph," said the old maid soothingly;
"when anybody's so good as Marg'et Ann, she doesn't call for much grace
in the people about her. I think it's a duty we owe to other people to
have some faults."

Outside the door Marg'et Ann still lingered, with her anxiety about the
bread on her lips and the shadow of much serving in her soft eyes. Miss
Nancy stopped and drew her favorite into the shelter of her gaunt arms.

"I'm coming over next week to help you get ready for the wedding,
Margie," she said, "and I'm going to stay when you're gone and look
after things. They don't need me at Samuel's now, and I'll be more
comfortable here. I've got enough to pay a little for my board the rest
of my life, and I don't mean to work very hard, but I can show Nancy
Helen and keep the run of things. There, don't cry. We'll go and look at
the sponge now. I guess you'd better ride over to Yankee Neck this
afternoon, and tell them you don't want the winter school--There,
there!"

At the Foot of the Trail

I

The slope in front of old Mosey's cabin was a mass of purple lupine.
Behind the house the wild oats were dotted with brodiaea, waving on long,
glistening stems. The California lilac was in bloom on the trail, and
its clumps of pale blossoms were like breaks in the chaparral, showing
the blue sky beyond.

In the corral between the house and the mountai