arvings and painted words on
walls and fireplace; she knew the tiny room where the Sisters knelt and
sang. One or two of the tunes ran in Becky's brain like haunting
undercurrents; but best of all, Becky knew the living room upon whose
generous hearth the fire burned from early autumn until the bloom of
dogwood, azalea, and laurel filled the space from which the ashes were
reluctantly swept. Every rug and chair and couch was familiar to the
burning eyes. The rows of bookshelves, the long, narrow table and--The
Picture on the Wall!

To that picture Becky went now. She had never been able to see it
distinctly from any window. It was the Good Shepherd. The noble, patient
face bent over the child on the man's breast had power to still Becky's
distraught mind. She could not understand, but a groping of that part of
her that could still feel and suffer reached the underlying suggestion
of the artist. Here was someone who was doing what, in a vague and
bungling way, Becky herself had always wanted to do--shield the young,
helpless thing that belonged to her.

The old face twitched and the soiled, crinkled arms--so empty and
yearning--hugged the trembling body. And so Sister Angela found her.

The three years since Angela had seen Becky Adams had taught her much of
her people--she called them _her_ people, now.

"I am so glad to see you, Aunt Becky," she said, smiling and pointing to
a chair by the hearth, quite in an easy way. "Are you tired after your
long walk?"

"Sorter." Becky came over to the chair and sank into it. Then she said
abruptly: "Zalie's gone!"

The brief statement had power to visualize the young creature as Angela
had once seen her: pretty as the flower whose name she bore, a little
shy thing with hungry, half-afraid eyes.

"Is she--dead?" Sister Angela's gaze grew deep and sympathetic.

"Not 'zactly--not daid--jes now." Poor Becky, breaking through her own
reserve and agony, made a pitiful appeal.

"She has--gone away? With whom?" Sister Angela began to comprehend and
she lowered her voice, bending toward Becky.

"She ain't gone with any one--she didn't have ter--but she'll fotch up
with someone fore long. She's gone to larn--she got the call, same as
all her kin--it's the curse!"

Now that the wall of reserve was down the pent waters rushed through and
they came on the fanciful, dramatic words peculiar to Becky and her
kind. Angela did not interrupt--she waited while the old, stifled voice
ran