tter, eggs, and garden truck that other women of
the neighbourhood used for extra clothing for themselves and their
daughters and to prettify their homes, Mrs. Bates handed to her husband
to increase the amount necessary to purchase the two hundred acres of
land for each son when he came of age. The youngest son had farmed his
land with comfortable profit and started a bank account, while his
parents and two sisters were still saving and working to finish the
last payment. Kate thought with bitterness that if this final payment
had been made possibly there would have been money to spare for her;
but with that thought came the knowledge that her father had numerous
investments on which he could have realized and made the payments had
he not preferred that they should be a burden on his family.

"Take the wings of morning," repeated Kate, with all the emphasis the
old minister had used. "Hummm! I wonder what kind of wings. Those of
a peewee would scarcely do for me; I'd need the wings of an eagle to
get me anywhere, and anyway it wasn't the wings of a bird I was to
take, it was the wings of morning. I wonder what the wings of morning
are, and how I go about taking them. God knows where my wings come in;
by the ache in my feet I seem to have walked, mostly. Oh, what ARE the
wings of morning?"

Kate stared straight before her, sitting absorbed and motionless. Close
in front of her a little white moth fluttered over the twigs and
grasses. A kingbird sailed into view and perched on a brush-heap
preparatory to darting after the moth. While the bird measured the
distance and waited for the moth to rise above the entangling grasses,
with a sweep and a snap a smaller bird, very similar in shape and
colouring, flashed down, catching the moth and flying high among the
branches of a big tree.

"Aha! You missed your opportunity!" said Kate to the kingbird.

She sat straighter suddenly. "Opportunity," she repeated. "Here is
where I am threatened with missing mine. Opportunity! I wonder now if
that might not be another name for 'the wings of morning.' Morning is
winging its way past me, the question is: do I sit still and let it
pass, or do I take its wings and fly away?"

Kate brooded on that awhile, then her thought formulated into words
again.

"It isn't as if Mother were sick or poor, she is perfectly well and
stronger than nine women out of ten of her age; Father can afford to
hire all the help she needs; ther