y, where the mists were slowly lifting;
lifting slowly like the pale ghost of the starlight that was. "Oh,
Daddy, Daddy Jim. You SURE kept your promise. You sure did. I'm
glad--glad they didn't get you, Daddy. They never WOULD have
believed what I know; never--never."

But there were no tears, and the shepherd, seeing after a little
touched her hand. "Everything is ready, dear; would you like to go
now?"

"Not just yet, Dad. I must tell you first how I came to be at
home, and why I am glad--oh, so glad, that I was here. But call
the others, please; I want them all to know."

When the three, who with her teacher loved her best, had come,
Sammy told her story; repeating almost word for word what she had
heard her father say to the men. When she had finished, she turned
her face again to the open window. The mists were gone. The
landscape lay bright in the sun. But Sammy could not see.

"It is much better, so much better, as it is, my child," said the
old scholar. "You see, dear, they would have taken him away.
Nothing could have saved him. It would have been a living death
behind prison walls away from you."

"Yes, I know, Dad. I understand. It is better as it is. Now, we
will go to him, please." They led her into the other room. The
floor in the corner of the cabin where the shepherd had washed it
was still damp.

Through it all, Sammy kept her old friend constantly by her side.
"It is easier, Dad, when you are near." Nor would she leave the
house until it was all over, save to walk a little way with her
teacher.

Young Matt and his father made the coffin of rough boards, sawed
at the mill; and from the country round about, the woods-people
came to the funeral, or, as they called it in their simple way,
the "burying." The grave was made in a little glen not far from
the house. When some of the neighbors would have brought a
minister from the settlement, Sammy said, "No." Dad would say all
that was necessary. So the shepherd, standing under the big trees,
talked a little in his simple kindly way, and spoke the words,
"Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes." "As good,"
declared some, "as any preacher on earth could o' done hit;"
though one or two held "it warn't jest right to put a body in th'
ground 'thout a regular parson t' preach th' sermon."

When the last word was spoken, and the neighbors had gone away
over the mountains and through the woods to their homes, Aunt
Mollie with her motherly arm abou