fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall
cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shall thou trust....
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow
that flieth by day.... For He shall give His angels charge over thee
to keep thee in all thy ways."

The spell of the wonderful words was still over the young folks' hearts
as Elizabeth and John walked up the lane with Charles Stuart. The
latter was particularly quiet. Elizabeth had noticed that his eyes
were moist and his voice very husky when he had bidden her father
good-by. She herself was very, very sad and lonely to-night, and the
weird beauty of the moonlit valley only added to her melancholy.

The night was still young, and up above the Long Hill there lingered
the gold and pink of the sunset. Above the black pines of Arrow Hill a
great round moon hung in the amethyst skies. And low over the valley
there stretched a misty veil of gold and silver, a magic web woven by
the fingers of the moonrise held out in farewell to touch the fairy
hands of the sunset. It was such a night as could intoxicate
Elizabeth. As the boys stood making arrangements for their early
morning drive to Cheemaun, she leaned over the gate and looked down the
long ghostly white line of Champlain's Road, hearing only the soft
splash of the mill water-fall coming up through the scented dusk. She
scarcely noticed Charles Stuart's farewell; nor his lingering
hand-clasp. When he was gone she went upstairs to her room, and long
after Mary and the rest of the household were asleep, she sat by the
window. And for the first time she strove to put on paper the thoughts
that were surging in her heart, demanding expression.

Elizabeth had written many, many rhymes, but they had all been gay and
nonsensical. She had never tried before to express a serious thought.
And to-night, she did not guess that her success was due to the fact
that her heart was aching over the parting with John.

CHAPTER XII

LEFT BEHIND

And so the barque Elizabeth was left stranded while the stream of
progress swept onward, bearing her friends. After the boys had left,
the languorous October days passed very slowly at The Dale, and
Elizabeth's energies of both body and mind soon began to cry out for a
wider field of activity.

She was hourly oppressed with a sense of her own uselessness, a feeling
her aunt's aggrieved manner tended to foster. Her heart smote her as