you, though I
couldn't to any one else, it was so big I couldn't see the top of it."

With her eyes bent on her sewing she told him about the Voice and the
Vision that had come to her when she looked up at Edryn's Window for the
first time, and how she had been wondering ever since what great duty it
was with which she was to keep tryst some day.

"I can always tell _you_ things without fear of being laughed at," she
ended, "so I don't mind saying that I believed at the time, it really
was the King's Call, and that some great destiny, oh far greater than
Joyce's or Betty's awaited me. It seemed so real I don't see how I could
have been mistaken, and yet--now--it _does_ seem foolish for me to
aspire so high. Doesn't it?"

There was a little break in her voice although she ended with a laugh.
Jack watched the brown head bent over her sewing for several minutes
before he replied. Then he said in a grave kind tone that Mary always
liked, because it seemed so intimate and as if he regarded her as his
own age, "Since I've been hurt, I've done a lot of thinking, and I've
come to the conclusion that the highest thing a man can aspire to, and
the blessedest, is 'to ease the burden of the world.' Either consciously
or unconsciously that is what every artist does who paints a
master-piece. He helps us bear our troubles by making us forget them--at
least, as long as the uplift and the inspiration stay with us. Every
author and musician whose work lives, does the same. Every inventor who
creates something to make toil easier, and life happier, eases that
burden to a degree.

"So I don't think you were mistaken about that call. Your achievement
_may_ be greater than the other girls, even here in Lone-Rock, as much
bigger and better, as a whole life is bigger and better than a few books
and pictures. You've begun on me, and you'll have Marion to try your
hand on next. No telling where you will stop. You may be the Apostle of
Cheerfulness to the entire far West before you are done. Who knows?"

Although the last words were spoken lightly, Mary felt the seriousness
underlying them, and looked up, her face shining, as if some mystery had
suddenly been made clear to her.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried. "You don't know how easy that makes every thing.
I've looked at life at Lone-Rock as something to be endured merely as a
stepping stone to better things. But if you think that this is the
beginning of my real tryst, I can answer the call in