paniment to her wandering thoughts. And then suddenly she was
aware that it had stopped, and that a brief silence had once more
fallen over the golden woods and the hazy field of corn.

The silence was broken by a sharp crack. Then a series of small
tearing, rushing, rending sounds ended in a mighty crash. Stephanie
knew that the tree was down, and an odd little feeling of regret came
over her; once more there was a moment of utter silence. Then, sharp
and keen and terribly distinct, she heard a wild cry from Dick.

She had run down the garden almost before that cry ceased to ring in
the air, and now she fled over the rough ground outside with as swift
and sure a step as a young deer might use. Her face was grey and drawn
with the sense of coming disaster, but neither her feet nor her breath
failed her as she breasted the low rise of ground, slippery with pine
needles, which lay between her and the place from which that cry had
come.

As she gained the crest of the hill, she staggered back a step and
almost fell, but recovered and ran on, though for a minute she was
blind and deaf and scarcely conscious.

The pine, shorn of its few branches, lay upon the ground, and near the
stump lay her father, with Dick kneeling beside him. When her sight
came back to her, she found that she also was kneeling there, staring
stupidly at her brother's agonised face, and at the great branch torn
from a neighbouring maple, which told all the terrible tale. Somewhere
in the silent woods a chipmunk chattered shrilly, and she wondered when
it would stop, for the noise hurt her head. Someone seemed to be
saying drearily over and over again, "What are we to do? What are we
to do?" and she felt angry with the momentous question. Surely silence
was the only fitting thing.

Then her senses seemed suddenly to wake into painful life again, and
she stood up and looked about in dry-eyed desperation. That her father
was seriously injured she knew, for the branch had struck him at the
base of the head. But he appeared to be still living; and what were
they to do for the best? A feeling of their utter loneliness swept
over her, bringing back that other irremediable loss of two years ago.
Once more she knelt in the rustling leaves, sobbing her heart out.
"Oh, mother!" she cried, "oh, mother, mother, mother!"

The words held the most passionate prayer she had ever prayed in her
life. And presently she rose to her feet again, with dimm