ghbors had made so pathetically
neat,--taking up the dead woman's task where she had left it, and doing
everything with scrupulous care, as if they feared some vision of
neglected duty might disturb her rest.

The frost was out of the ground and the spring plowing had begun. There
was a smell of fresh earth from the furrows, and a red-bud tree in the
thicket was faintly pink.

Lloyd was silent and troubled, and Marg'et Ann could not trust her
voice. They walked on without speaking, and the dusk was deepening
before they turned to go back. Marg'et Ann had thrown a little homespun
shawl over her head, for there was a memory of frost in the air, but it
had fallen back and Lloyd could see her profile with its new lines of
grief in the dim light.

"It don't seem right, Marg'et Ann," he began in a voice strained almost
to coldness by intensity of feeling.

"But it _is_ right,--we know that, Lloyd," interrupted the girl; then
she turned and threw both arms about his neck and buried her face on his
shoulder. "Oh, Lloyd, I can't bear it--I can't bear it alone--you must
help me to be--to be--reconciled!"

The young man laid his cheek upon her soft hair. There was nothing but
hot, unspoken rebellion in his heart. They stood still an instant, and
then Marg'et Ann raised her head and drew the little shawl up and caught
it under her quivering chin.

"We must go in," she said staidly, choking back her sobs.

Lloyd laid his hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him again.

"Is there no help, Marg'et Ann?" he said piteously, looking into her
tear-stained face. In his heart he knew there was none. He had gone over
the ground a thousand times since he had seen her standing beside her
mother's open grave with the group of frightened children clinging to
her.

"God is our refuge and our strength,
In straits a present aid;
Therefore, although the earth remove
We will not be afraid,"

repeated the girl, her sweet voice breaking into a whispered sob at the
end. They walked to the step and stood there for a moment in silence.

The minister opened the door.

"Is that you, Marg'et Ann," he asked. "I think we'd better have worship
now; the children are getting sleepy."

* * * * *

Almost a year before patient, tireless Esther Morrison's eternal holiday
had come, a man, walking leisurely along an empty mill-race, had picked
up a few shining yellow particles, holding in his hand for