, as we shall all be judged--we've all of us
enough to answer for...."

For a long time the sick woman lay as if overwhelmed by stress of
feeling, unable to speak. Olof, with tears in his eyes, sat deep in
thought; the elder son had not moved.

"And now I can leave it to you," she went on more calmly. "'Tis all
tied up, as I said, with thoughts of that time, ay, and hopes and
prayers, all the best and the hardest in my life. And I'm not the only
one that's had such things to bear through life. There's many a one
the world knows nothing of, for a woman can bear a great sorrow and
never speak of it. And I've heard since, that there was trouble of the
same sort here in the house before my day.... Heaven grant I may be
the last to suffer! And so I wanted you to take the thing between
you--half to each--the scar's between them, so you'll share that too.
Remember it, and tell your children some time. And they can pass on
the legacy to theirs--with all the hopes and prayers and tears it
brought--only let the name be forgotten!"

All three looked earnestly at the grim heirloom that stood there
reaching from floor to ceiling; it seemed to grow, as they watched,
into a monument over the grave of many generations.

* * * * *

The sick woman turned anxiously to her sons.

"Will you take it?" she asked. "Will you take it, with all that it
means...?"

Olof pressed her hand to his lips in answer. The elder brother sat
motionless, as before, his eyelids trembled as if he were on the point
of tears. His mother read his answer in his eyes.

"I'm glad it's over now," she said in relief. "And now I've no more to
give you, but--my blessing!"

Her face lit with the same great gentleness that had softened it for
years, she looked long and tenderly at her sons.

"Olof," she said at last, as if to wake him from his thoughts; "_it
happened at the time before you were born_...."

The elder son looked at his mother in astonishment--why should she
tell them what they had known all along?

But Olof looked up suddenly, as if he had heard something new and
significant. The quiver in his mother's voice told him what she meant,
the look in her eyes seemed to shed a light on what had been dark
before.

Questioningly he looked at her, as if silently asking confirmation of
his thought.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I have often thought of that, these last sad years...."

Olof felt as if a mighty st