sky, and dull-brown earth, and her
thoughts turned in bitterness to her unfinished tasks; but gradually
the witchery of the summer night entered her soul and left room for
little else. Strange faces, peeping in and out of the clouds, looked
at her from the sky; and fantastic figures, clothed in the evening
mist, swept up the valley to her feet. The grass assumed a deeper
green, and the trees stood out like sentinels along the hilltop behind
the house. Even when she turned and went back to the kitchen, and took
upon herself once more the accustomed tasks, her eyes still faintly
glowed with the memory of what they had seen.

"It do beat all," said Theron a month later to Helen Raymond, who was
again a visitor at the farm,--"it do beat all, Helen, what's come over
yer aunt. She used ter be nervous-like, and fretted, an' things never
went ter suit. Now she's calm, an' her eyes kind o' shine--'specially
when she comes in from one of them tramps of hers outdoors. She says
it's her Angelus--if ye know what that is; but it strikes me as mighty
queer--it do, Helen, it do!"

And Helen smiled, content.

The Apple of Her Eye

It rained. It had rained all day. To Helen Raymond, spatting along the
wet slipperiness of the drenched pavements, it seemed as if it had always
rained, and always would rain.

Helen was tired, blue, and ashamed--ashamed because she was blue; blue
because she was tired; and tired because--wearily her mind reviewed her
day.

She had dragged herself out of bed at half-past five, but even then her
simple toilet had been hastened to an untidy half completion by the
querulous insistence of her mother's frequent "You know, Helen,--you
_must_ know how utterly impossible it is for me to lift my head until
I've had my coffee! _Are n't_ you nearly ready?" Mrs. Raymond had
wakened earlier than usual that morning, and she could never endure to
lie in bed when not asleep.

With one shoe unbuttoned and no collar on, Helen had prepared the coffee;
then had come the delicate task of getting the semi-invalid up and
dressed, with hair smoothed to the desired satiny texture. The hair had
refused to smooth, however, this morning; buttons had come off, too, and
strings had perversely knotted until Helen's patience had almost
snapped--almost, but not quite. In the end her own breakfast, and the
tidying of herself and the little four-room flat, had degenerated into a
breathless scramble broken by remors