I had dreaded sickness and pain for her."

"It has been all hard for you. I hope it will be easier now. I hope
it will always be easier."

"I am going to live with Mrs. Kirkbright," said Sylvie.

"Tell me about my new aunt," said Rodney.

Sylvie was glad to go on about Desire, about the wedding, about
Hill-hope, and the plans for living there.

"I think it will be almost like heaven," she said. "It will be home
and happiness; all that people look forward to for themselves. And
yet, right alongside, there will be the work and the help. It will
open right out into it, as heaven does into earth. Mr. Kirkbright is
a grand man."

"Yes. He's one of the ten-talent people. But I suppose we can all do
something. It is good to have some little one-horse teams for the
light jobs."

"I never could _be_ Desire," said Sylvie. "But I am glad, to work
with her. I am glad to live one of the little lives."

There would always be a boy and girl simpleness between these two,
and in their taking of the world together. And that is good for the
world, as well. It cannot be all made of mountains. If all were high
and grand, it would be as if nothing were. Heaven itself is not
built like that.

"There goes some of Uncle Christopher's stuff, I suppose," said
Rodney, a while afterward, as they came to the top of a long ascent.
He pointed to a great loaded wain that stood with its three powerful
horses on the crest of a forward hill. It was piled high up with
tiling and drain-pipe, packed with straw. The long cylinders showed
their round mouths behind, like the mouths of cannon.

"A nice cargo for these hills, I should think."

"They have brakes on the wheels, of course," said Sylvie. "And the
horses are strong. That must be for the new houses. They will soon
make all those things here. Mr. Kirkbright has large contracts for
brick, already. He has been sending down specimens. They say the
clay is of remarkably fine quality."

"We shall have to get by that thing, presently," said Rodney. "I
hope the horse will take it well."

"Are you trying to frighten me?" asked Sylvie, smiling. "I'm used to
these roads. I have spent half a summer here, you know."

But Rodney knew that it was the "being used" that would be the
question with the horse. He doubted if the little country beast had
ever seen drain-pipe before. He had once driven Red Squirrel past a
steam boiler that was being transported on a truck. He remembered
the writhe with wh