of the Randall family,
died, and Rebecca went home for a fortnight's visit. The sight of the
small still shape that had been Mira, the baby who had been her special
charge ever since her birth, woke into being a host of new thoughts and
wonderments; for it is sometimes the mystery of death that brings one
to a consciousness of the still greater mystery of life.

It was a sorrowful home-coming for Rebecca. The death of Mira, the
absence of John, who had been her special comrade, the sadness of her
mother, the isolation of the little house, and the pinching economies
that went on within it, all conspired to depress a child who was so
sensitive to beauty and harmony as Rebecca.

Hannah seemed to have grown into a woman during Rebecca's absence.
There had always been a strange unchildlike air about Hannah, but in
certain ways she now appeared older than aunt Jane--soberer, and more
settled. She was pretty, though in a colorless fashion; pretty and
capable.

Rebecca walked through all the old playgrounds and favorite haunts of
her early childhood; all her familiar, her secret places; some of them
known to John, some to herself alone. There was the spot where the
Indian pipes grew; the particular bit of marshy ground where the
fringed gentians used to be largest and bluest; the rock maple where
she found the oriole's nest; the hedge where the field mice lived; the
moss-covered stump where the white toadstools were wont to spring up as
if by magic; the hole at the root of the old pine where an ancient and
honorable toad made his home; these were the landmarks of her
childhood, and she looked at them as across an immeasurable distance.
The dear little sunny brook, her chief companion after John, was sorry
company at this season. There was no laughing water sparkling in the
sunshine. In summer the merry stream had danced over white pebbles on
its way to deep pools where it could be still and think. Now, like
Mira, it was cold and quiet, wrapped in its shroud of snow; but Rebecca
knelt by the brink, and putting her ear to the glaze of ice, fancied,
where it used to be deepest, she could hear a faint, tinkling sound. It
was all right! Sunnybrook would sing again in the spring; perhaps Mira
too would have her singing time somewhere--she wondered where and how.
In the course of these lonely rambles she was ever thinking, thinking,
of one subject. Hannah had never had a chance; never been freed from
the daily care and work of the