readed her
loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely any
more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the tabernacle
where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be afraid. To
sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and likeness, had
tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not seem to
herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead. They had been fused,
by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being worlds apart, they were
at one. So, John Cummings, her brother, stepping briskly in, after tying
his horse at the gate, came upon her unawares, and started, with a
hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of evening; and, seeing her
outline against the window, he stepped back against the wall and leaned
there a moment, grasping at the casing with one hand. "Good God!" he
breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!"

Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him.

"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git
along, if I could look a little mite like her."

John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment.

"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?"

"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble mother,
though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it. Well, I _am_
pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down Saltash way, though
it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I can take a glimpse of
myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can git along."

They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John
had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest. When she gave up
Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he never pitied her much;
he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The other day, even, some one
had wondered that she could have heard the funeral service so unmoved;
but he, seeing how her face had seemed to fade and wither at every word,
guessed what pain was at her heart. So, though his wife had sent him
over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on, he really found out very
little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be when he got home. Lucy
Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say. She'd got to looking a
good deal like mother.

They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting a
stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a
low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It migh