ed with trade a time back. Tate held his peace, but he had never
forgotten.

The laugh that followed Jock's interruption nettled the tavern-keeper.

But the pretty window had been finished before Drew and the autumn went.
It was Joyce's sanctuary and pride. In it stood the work-basket, a gift
from the mystical sister of Drew, who lived off somewhere beyond the
Southern Solitude, a girl about whom Drew never tired of talking, and
about whom events seemed to cluster as bees round a hive.

In that nook, too, hung the three wonderful pictures--Gaston's wedding
gift.

There were spaces between the sides and centre of the window, and in the
middle place hung a modern Madonna and Child. This Joyce could
comprehend. Gaston knew the older, rarer ones would be beyond her.

That pictured Mother and Child were moulding Joyce's character. Gaston
had wondered how they might affect her.

To the left of the Madonna was an ocean view. A stretch of sandy shore,
an in-rolling, white-crested wave--with a limitless beyond.

To the wood-environed mind of the girl this picture was simply a
breath-taking fairy fancy.

It existed, such a thing as that. Gaston had sworn it, but it was
incomprehensible. However, it led the new-born imagination to expand and
wander, and when Joyce was at peace, and the sun shone, she went to that
picture for excitement and worship.

To the right of the Madonna hung a photograph. Gaston had taken it
himself long ago. A foreground of rugged, cruel rock; black where age
had stamped it; white where snow traced the deep wrinkles of time. But
out of this rough light and shade, rose a glorious peak, sun-touched and
cloud-loved. A triumphant soul reaching up to heaven out of all the
time-racked rock.

[Illustration: THAT PICTURED MOTHER AND CHILD WERE MOULDING JOYCE'S
CHARACTER]

The dwarfish peaks, that had surrounded Joyce's outlook all her life,
made one understand the girl's love for this picture. As this was great,
compared to the small things she knew, so life held possibilities that
her life hinted--she might struggle with that ideal in mind.

The ocean scene was her fancy's fairy space; the towering peak, her
philosophy.

But Joyce knew nothing of all this, consciously. Marriage, as Isa had
foretold, brought its many cares and new interests. The strangeness and
importance dwindled. No one considered the matter different from any
other joining of St. Ange forces into a common life--the girl herself