indow. Without, the October starlight lay white and
frosty on the moors, the old barn, the sharp, dark hills, and the
river, which was half hidden by the orchard. One could hear it, like
some huge giant moaning in his sleep, at times, and see broad patches
of steel blue glittering through the thick apple-trees and the bushes.
Her mother had fallen into a doze. Margret looked at her, thinking how
sallow the plump, fair face had grown, and how faded the kindly blue
eyes were now. Dim with crying,--she knew that, though she never saw
her shed a tear. Always cheery, going placidly about the house in her
gray dress and Quaker cap, as if there were no such things in the world
as debt or blindness. But Margret knew, though she said nothing. When
her mother came in from those wonderful foraging expeditions in search
of late pease or corn, she could see the swollen circle round the eyes,
and hear her breath like that of a child which has sobbed itself tired.
Then, one night, when she had gone into her mother's room, after she
was in bed, the blue eyes were set in a wild, hopeless way, as if
staring down into years of starvation and misery. The fire on the
hearth burned low and clear; the old worn furniture stood out
cheerfully in the red glow, and threw a maze of twisted shadow on the
floor. But the glow was all that was cheerful. To-morrow, when the
hard daylight should jeer away the screening shadows, it would unbare a
desolate, shabby home. She knew; struck with the white leprosy of
poverty; the blank walls, the faded hangings, the old stone house
itself, looking vacantly out on the fields with a pitiful significance
of loss. Upon the mantel-shelf there was a small marble figure, one of
the Dancing Graces: the other two were gone, gone in pledge. This one
was left, twirling her foot, and stretching out her hands in a dreary
sort of ecstasy, with no one to respond. For a moment, so empty and
bitter seemed her home and her life, that she thought the lonely dancer
with her flaunting joy mocked her,--taunted them with the slow, gray
desolation that had been creeping on them for years. Only for a moment
the morbid fancy hurt her.

The red glow was healthier, suited her temperament better. She chose
to fancy the house as it had been once,--should be again, please God.
She chose to see the old comfort and the old beauty which the poor
school-master had gathered about their home. Gone now. But it should
return. It