ther's. She tried every
refuge her mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. Mrs.
Comstock could neither eat nor sleep. She wandered around the cabin and
garden. She kept far from the pool where Robert Comstock had sunk from
sight for she felt that it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come
home Wednesday morning. The mother told herself that she would wait, but
the waiting was as bitter as anything she ever had known.

When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands of a seamstress
and was soon fitted. It had belonged to the Angel, and was a soft
white thing that with a little alteration would serve admirably for
Commencement and the ball. All that day Elnora worked, helping prepare
the auditorium for the exercises, rehearsing the march and the speech
she was to make in behalf of the class. The following day was even
busier. But her mind was at rest, for the dress was a soft delicate lace
easy to change, and the marks of alteration impossible to detect.

The Bird Woman had telephoned to Grand Rapids, explained the situation
and asked the Angel if she might use it. The reply had been to give the
girl the contents of the chest. When the Bird Woman told Elnora, tears
filled her eyes.

"I will write at once and thank her," she said. "With all her beautiful
gowns she does not need them, and I do. They will serve for me often,
and be much finer than anything I could afford. It is lovely of her
to give me the dress and of you to have it altered for me, as I never
could."

The Bird Woman laughed. "I feel religious to-day," she said. "You know
the first and greatest rock of my salvation is 'Do unto others.' I'm
only doing to you what there was no one to do for me when I was a girl
very like you. Anna tells me your mother was here early this morning and
that she came to see about getting you a dress."

"She is too late!" said Elnora coldly. "She had over a month to prepare
my dresses, and I was to pay for them, so there is no excuse."

"Nevertheless, she is your mother," said the Bird Woman, softly. "I
think almost any kind of a mother must be better than none at all, and
you say she has had great trouble."

"She loved my father and he died," said Elnora. "The same thing, in
quite as tragic a manner, has happened to thousands of other women, and
they have gone on with calm faces and found happiness in life by loving
others. There w