w blind to her own beauty, nor did she fail to
see that transfiguring touch of sorrow and peace. These two are
sculptors, one working both from within and without, and the other only
from within.

Why should she not put her veil forever away from her now? Why should
she not meet the world face to face, as frankly as the world met her?
Why should she delay?

She had questioned herself continually, but found no answer. Since she
came back to her old home, she had been mysteriously led. Perhaps she
was to be led further through the deep mazes of life--it was not only
possible, but probable.

"I'll wait," she said to herself, "for a sign."

She had not seen the Piper since the day they met so strangely, with
Anthony Dexter lying dead between them. Quite often, however, she had
heard the flute, usually at sunrise or sunset, afar off in the hills.
Once, at the hour of the turning night, the melody had come to her on
the first grey winds of dawn.

A robin had waked to answer it, for the Piper's fluting was wondrously
like his own voice.

Contrasting her present peace with her days of torment. Miss Evelina
thrilled with gratitude to Piper Tom, who had taken the weeds out of
her garden in more senses than one. His hand had guided her, slowly,
yet surely, to the heights of calm. She saw her life now as a desolate
valley lying between two peaks. One was sunlit, yet opaline with the
mists of morning; the other was scarcely a peak, but merely a high and
grassy plain upon which the afternoon shadows lay long.

Ah, but there were terrors in the dark valley which lay between! Sharp
crags and treeless wastes, tortuous paths and abysmal depths, with
never a rest for the wayfarer who struggled blindly on. She was not
yet so secure upon the height that she could contemplate the valley
unmoved.

Her house was immaculate, now, and was kept so by her own hands. At
first, she had not cared, and the dust and the cobwebs had not mattered
at all. Miss Mehitable, in the beginning, had inspired her to
housewifely effort, and Doctor Ralph's personal neatness had made her
ashamed. She worked in the garden, too, keeping the brick-bordered
paths free from weeds, and faithfully attending to every plant.

Yet life seemed strangely empty, lifted above its all-embracing pain.
The house and garden did not occupy her fully, and she had few books.
These were all old ones, and she knew them by heart, though she had
found some pleasure