eps and clings!

And Owen Saxham, watching Lynette from the ladder-foot, and the
Mother-Superior, clasping her and murmuring soft comfort into the
delicate, fragile ear under the heaped waves of red-brown hair, shared the
same thought.

How this trembling, vibrating, emotional creature will love one day, when
the man arrives to whom imperious Nature shall bid her render up her all!

In whom, prayed the unselfish mother-heart, willing to be bereft of even
the Heaven-sent consolation for the sake of the beloved, in whom may she
find not only the earthly mate-fellow, but the kindred soul. For,
all-pitying Mother of Mercy! should she, too, be doomed to stake all upon
a wavering, unstable, headlong Richard, what will happen then?

Looking at the pair, Saxham thought of Ruth and Naomi. Lynette's tears had
been dried quickly, like all joy-drops that the eyes shed. She was talking
low and earnestly, pleading her cause with clinging hands and wistful
looks and coaxing tones that were broken sometimes by a sob and sometimes
by a little peal of girlish laughter.

"Mother, I am not made of sugar to be melted in the sun, or Dresden china
to be broken. I am strong enough to take my share of the work; I am brave
enough to bear anything--anything," she urged, "if only I may be with you.
But to sit cooped up here day after day, safe and sheltered, sewing
powder-bags or giving Katie French lessons, or helping Sister Tobias, and
listening to the guns"--the blood fled from her cheeks and the great
pupils of her eyes dilated until they looked all black in her face of
whiteness--"the dreadful guns, and wondering where you are when the shells
are bursting"--her voice rose in anguish--"I can't bear it! Mother, do you
hear?" She threw her beautiful head back entreatingly, and the pulses in
her white throat throbbed under Saxham's eyes, and her slight hands were
desperate in their clutch upon the arms that held her. "I want my share of
the risk, whatever it is. I will have it! It is my right. I have tried to
be good and patient, but I can't, I can't, I can't stand this any more!"

Her voice broke upon a sob, and Saxham said from the doorway that was
filled by his great shoulders from post to post:

"You will not have to stand it any more. The Reverend Mother has
reconsidered her decision. She will take you to the Hospital and elsewhere
from to-day."

The man's curt manner and authoritative tone brought Lynette for the first
time to knowl