pon the heel of this stocking."

She wept aloud and saw now that not for nothing had she come upon this
secret Farm and that in this glowing orchard she was to learn her
hardest lesson. The Dame spoke again, and finally.

"Listen!" she said, "for this is the way of it. No woman living will
ever do a great work who could not have borne great children, and if she
can bear great children she can do no other great work. Else she would
be as God Almighty, who has made both the poet and the poem, the painter
and his picture. For He made it before the painter could see it. Now, go
and help them with the apples, for the sun is setting and there are yet
a few to gather."

She stumbled forward and threw herself upon the fragrant heaps and
toiled till the breath left her, nor did she talk any more to Elspeth,
who worked beside her, nor to Joan who picked behind. Her back ached and
her arms wearied with their load; her legs began again to tremble and
her breath came short. And all the time her brows were knotted with a
teasing thought and her lips moved ceaselessly. Suddenly she rushed
toward the placid Dame and fell on her knees before her.

"Oh, Dame," she cried, "must we always labour so? Can we never achieve,
but must we ever do those tasks which the night will undo again? These
apples will not stand for the world to see that I picked them; your
dairy work is unwoven like a dream. Must it be so?"

"My dear," said the Dame, and her smile was sweeter than the sunlight
through the coloured boughs, "it must be always so. Even as the day dies
every night and is born with the dawn; even as the orchard leaves but to
blossom and blossoms but to fruit, and all is to do another year; even
as God makes the harvest for us to spoil, and smiles and makes another;
so must women weave what the year will wear and wash what the day will
soil. And man, her greatest work, will one day die and moulder into
roses that other men shall one day pick. Our men-children finish their
lovely toys and set them on the shelf, but our work is too great that
we should ever finish it; it is so great that it must needs be made of
many tiny matters, done now and again like the growing rains and
sheltering snows. We can never be at rest--till God himself rests. Do
you understand what I would be saying?"

She wept and laid her head in the Dame's lap and the yellow apples fell
about her knees as she knelt. But she answered:

"Yes, dear Dame, I understand. But,