n a night. She assumed direction of the house, and
calmly ordered mammy around in a way that warmed that old soul, born to
cheerful servitude. She hired a goatherd and rigidly oversaw his
handiwork. Then she approached Dom Francisco one evening as he sat at
her father's bedside and told him that he must find a purchaser for the
goats--all of them.

The Reverend Orme, although he heard, took no interest in any temporal
affair. Mrs. Leighton looked up and asked mildly:

"Why, dear?"

"Because we need money," said Natalie. "No doctor would come here. We
must take father away."

No one recoiled from the idea; but it was new to them all except
Natalie. It took days and days for it to sink in. It was on Dom
Francisco that Natalie most exerted herself. He had aged, and age had
made him weak. He fell a slow, but easy, prey to her youth, grown
sweetly dominant. He himself would arrange to buy the enormous herd of
goats, the greatest in the country-side. And, finally, with a great
shrinking from the definite implication, he agreed to buy back Nadir as
well.

No mere argument could have led the old man to such a concession. It was
love--love for these strangers that he had cherished within his gates,
love for the gloomy man whom he had seen young and then old, love for
Ann and Natalie and mammy, with their quiet ways, love for the very way
of life of all of them--a way distantly above anything he had ever
dreamed before their coming, that drove him, almost against his will, to
speed their parting. He sent for money. He himself spent long, wistful
hours preparing the ox-wagon, the litter, and the horses that were to
bear them away.

Then one night the Reverend Orme slept and awoke no more. In the morning
Natalie went into the room and found her mother sitting very still
beside the bed, one of the Reverend Orme's hands in both of hers. Tears
followed each other slowly down her cheeks. She did not brush them away.

"Mother!" cried Natalie, in the first grip of premonition.

"Hush, dear!" said Mrs. Leighton. "He is gone."

They buried him at the very top of the valley, where the eye, guided by
the parallel hills, sought ever and again the great mountain thirty
miles away. In that clear air the distant mountain seemed very near.
There were those who said they could see the holy cross upon its brow.

That night Mrs. Leighton and mammy sat idle and staring in the house.
Suddenly they had realized that for them the years of te