kness. Then
she groped her way to the table and lighted her lamp. Its cheerful
radiance flooded every part of the little room, and showed each familiar
piece of furniture in its new surroundings. Yes, there was the high
chest of drawers that Grandfather Means had made from the wood of a
cherry tree on the old home place; there was the colonial sewing-table,
and the splint-bottomed rocker, the old bookcase, and all the rest of
the belongings that she cherished because they belonged to "the family."
But how strange her brass candlesticks looked on that mantel! It was not
_her_ mantel, and the wall-paper was not hers. Her wall-paper was gray
with purple lilacs all over it, and this was pink and green and white!
And the windows and doors were not in their right places. Ah! the hold
of Place and Custom! The memories and associations of a lifetime twined
themselves around her heart closer and closer, and the hand of Change
seemed to be tearing at every root and tendril. Pale and trembling she
sank into a chair, and the same tears she had shed sixty years ago, the
tears of a homesick child, fell over her wrinkled cheeks, while in her
brain one thought repeated itself with a terrifying emphasis: "_I can't
get used to it. I can't get used to it._"

But the sound of her own sobs put a stop to her grief. She brushed the
tears away with the back of her hand and glanced toward the door. The
other woman across the hall must not know her weakness. She rose, walked
forlornly to a side window, and parting the curtains, looked fearfully
out. Why, where was the lilac bush and the Lombardy poplar and the
box-wood hedge? Again the hand tore at her heart; she peered
bewilderedly into the night. Alas! the stream turned from its course
cannot at once forget the old channel and the old banks. Again the tears
came, but as she wiped them away, a fresh wind arose, parting the light
clouds that lay in the western sky and showing a crescent moon and near
it the evening star. Like a message from heaven came a memory that dried
her tears and swept away the homesick longing. Twenty-five years ago she
had looked at the new moon on her wedding night, and this was Anna
Belle's wedding night--her daughter's wedding night! Fairer than moon or
star, the face of the young bride seemed to look into hers; she felt the
girl's clinging arms around her neck and heard the fervent whisper:
"_You are the very best mother in the whole wide world._"

She lifted her ey