gh all the sweet and busy sounds of summer, for a
step that never came.

And little by little all those sounds grew fainter on her ear: the
dulness of death was stealing over all her senses; and all she heard was
the song of the thrush where the bird swayed on the vine, half in, half
out, of the lattice.

But the lips moved still, though no voice came, with the same words: "Is
she come?" and when the lips no more could move, the dark and straining
wistfulness of the eyes asked the question more earnestly, more
terribly, more ceaselessly.

The thrush sang on, and on, and on; but to the prayer of the dying eyes
no answer came.

The red sun sank into the purple mists of cloud; the song of the bird
was ended; the voice of the watching girl murmured, "They will come too
late!"

For, as the sun faded off from the vine in the lattice, and the singing
of the bird grew silent, grand'mere raised herself with her arms
outstretched, and the strength of her youth returned in the hour of
dissolution.

"They never come back!" she cried. "They never come back! nor will she!
One dead in Africa--and one crushed beneath the stone--and one shot on
the barricade. The three went forth together; but not one returned. We
breed them, we nurse them, we foster them; and the world slays them body
and soul, and eats the limbs that lay in our bosoms, and burns up the
souls that we knew so pure. And she went where they went: she is dead
like them."

Her head fell back; her mouth was grey and parched, her eyes had no
longer sight; a shiver ran through the hardy frame that winter storms
and summer droughts had bruised and scorched so long; and a passionless
and immeasurable grief came on the brown, weary, age-worn face.

"All dead!" she murmured in the stillness of the chamber, where the song
of the bird had ceased, and the darkness of night had come.

Then through her lips the last breath quivered in a deep-drawn sigh, and
the brave, patient, unrewarded life passed out for ever.

* * *

"You surely find no debtor such an ingrate, no master such a tyrant, as
the People?"

"Perhaps. But, rather I find it a dog that bullies and tears where it is
feared, but may be made faithful by genuine courage and strict justice
shown to it."

"The experience of the musician, then, must be much more fortunate than
the experience of the statesman."

"Why, yes. It is ungrateful to great men, I grant; but it has the
irritation of it