d they loved him no less for it.

Mrs. Mavor's call was not so easily disposed of. It came close upon
the other, and stirred Black Rock as nothing else had ever stirred it
before.

I found her one afternoon gazing vacantly at some legal documents spread
out before her on the table, and evidently overcome by their contents.
There was first a lawyer's letter informing her that by the death of her
husband's father she had come into the whole of the Mavor estates, and
all the wealth pertaining thereto. The letter asked for instructions,
and urged an immediate return with a view to a personal superintendence
of the estates. A letter, too, from a distant cousin of her husband
urged her immediate return for many reasons, but chiefly on account
of the old mother who had been left alone with none nearer of kin than
himself to care for her and cheer her old age.

With these two came another letter from her mother-in-law herself. The
crabbed, trembling characters were even more eloquent than the words
with which the letter closed.

'I have lost my boy, and now my husband is gone, and I am a lonely
woman. I have many servants, and some friends, but none near to me, none
so near and dear as my dead son's wife. My days are not to be many. Come
to me, my daughter; I want you and Lewis's child.'

'Must I go?' she asked with white lips.

'Do you know her well?' I asked.

'I only saw her once or twice,' she answered; 'but she has been very
good to me.'

'She can hardly need you. She has friends. And surely you are needed
here.'

She looked at me eagerly.

'Do you think so?' she said.

'Ask any man in the camp--Shaw, Nixon, young Winton, Geordie. Ask
Craig,' I replied.

'Yes, he will tell me,' she said.

Even as she spoke Craig came up the steps. I passed into my studio and
went on with my work, for my days at Black Rock were getting few, and
many sketches remained to be filled in.

Through my open door I saw Mrs. Mavor lay her letters before Mr. Craig,
saying, 'I have a call too.' They thought not of me.

He went through the papers, carefully laid them down without a word
while she waited anxiously, almost impatiently, for him to speak.

'Well?' she asked, using his own words to her; 'should I go?'

'I do not know,' he replied; 'that is for you to decide--you know all
the circumstances.'

'The letters tell all.' Her tone carried a feeling of disappointment. He
did not appear to care.

'The estates are large?' he