she
could. She never said so, but I'm sure she was sorry for every hard
word she spoke to you; she didn't take 'em back in life, but she acted
so 't you'd know her feeling when she was gone."

"I told her before I left that she'd been the making of me, just as
mother says," sobbed Rebecca.

"She wasn't that," said Jane. "God made you in the first place, and
you've done considerable yourself to help Him along; but she gave you
the wherewithal to work with, and that ain't to be despised; specially
when anybody gives up her own luxuries and pleasures to do it. Now let
me tell you something, Rebecca. Your aunt Mirandy 's willed all this to
you,--the brick house and buildings and furniture, and the land all
round the house, as far 's you can see."

Rebecca threw off her hat and put her hand to her heart, as she always
did in moments of intense excitement. After a moment's silence she
said: "Let me go in alone; I want to talk to her; I want to thank her;
I feel as if I could make her hear and feel and understand!"

Jane went back into the kitchen to the inexorable tasks that death has
no power, even for a day, to blot from existence. He can stalk through
dwelling after dwelling, leaving despair and desolation behind him, but
the table must be laid, the dishes washed, the beds made, by somebody.

Ten minutes later Rebecca came out from the Great Presence looking
white and spent, but chastened and glorified. She sat in the quiet
doorway, shaded from the little Riverboro world by the overhanging
elms. A wide sense of thankfulness and peace possessed her, as she
looked at the autumn landscape, listened to the rumble of a wagon on
the bridge, and heard the call of the river as it dashed to the sea.
She put up her hand softly and touched first the shining brass knocker
and then the red bricks, glowing in the October sun.

It was home; her roof, her garden, her green acres, her dear trees; it
was shelter for the little family at Sunnybrook; her mother would have
once more the companionship of her sister and the friends of her
girlhood; the children would have teachers and playmates.

And she? Her own future was close-folded still; folded and hidden in
beautiful mists; but she leaned her head against the sun-warmed door,
and closing her eyes, whispered, just as if she had been a child saying
her prayers: "God bless aunt Miranda; God bless the brick house that
was; God bless the brick house that is to be!"

End