t had once belonged to old
Sandy and there Charlie and Eppie were to start their new life. And so
just as the stars were sinking into the faint blue vault of heaven, and
the earth was rising slowly from its shroud of darkness and sleep,
Elizabeth had arisen and was now dressed and waiting for Charles Stuart
long before he could be expected.

The grand forward march of day had commenced; very slowly and
majestically it was approaching, and the waking earth stirred at the
sound of its footsteps. From every bush and tree looming up from the
grayness, from every field spread out in dark waving folds, and from
the black swamp beyond uprose the welcoming chorus. Elizabeth was
reminded of that early dawn she had witnessed so long ago when she had
sat at this same window watching for Charles Stuart. That was the
morning she had seen Annie steal down the orchard path to meet her
lover, the morning she had experienced her first hint of that desire,
now strong within her, to sing of the glories of earth and sky.

She leaned forward over the window-sill, listening to the great chant
earth was raising to heaven. Up behind the black trees of Arrow Hill
shone a faint crystal transparency--the airy curtain that yet obscured
the wonders of the dawn. A mist gathered in Elizabeth's eyes. Those
words that had come to her in that dawn years before returned:--"Who
coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchest out the
heavens like a curtain." Slowly, imperceptibly, that garment of light
was growing brighter, changing to a faint luminous gold as the gray
earth changed to a deep blue.

Down the drive lane, near the creek stood the old elm, its topmost
branch still towering into the heavens, its lower limbs sweeping the
earth. Remembering how it had come to life that other morning,
Elizabeth leaned farther out to listen. And as it slowly took form,
gathering itself from the blue background, there arose the musical
accompaniment to its birth, the loud rapture of a robin's morning hymn.

It paeaned the waking note to the watcher as well. Elizabeth's soul
soared up with it in ecstatic worship, voiced in the notes of a new
song, that came from her heart as freely as did the robin's. For years
her fettered spirit had been struggling to express its music, but the
repression of her early life, disobedience to the call to higher and
nobler things, and later a crushing sorrow had stifled her voice. But
now she was free.