h woods; these are smooth and gentle. And we shall miss the
lake, Mardie."

"Yes; but we can look at the blue sea from your bedroom window, Sue!"

"And we'll tell Fardie about Polly Reed and the little quail bird, won't
we?"

"Yes; but he and Jack will have a great deal to say to us, and we
mustn't talk all the time about the dear, kind Shakers, you know!"

"You're all '_buts_,' Mardie!" at which Susanna smiled through her
tears.

Twilight deepened into dusk, and dusk into dark, and then the moon rose
over the poplar trees outside the window where Susanna and Sue were
sleeping. The Shaker Brethren and Sisters were resting serenely after
their day of confession. It was the aged Tabitha's last Sabbath on
earth, but had she known, it would have made no difference; if ever a
soul was ready for heaven, it was Tabitha's.

There was an Irish family at the foot of the long hill that lay between
the Settlement and the village of Albion; father, mother, and children
had prayed to the Virgin before they went to bed; and the gray-haired
minister in the low-roofed parsonage was writing his communion sermon on
a text sacred to the orthodox Christian world. The same moon shone over
all, and over millions of others worshiping strange idols and holding
strange beliefs in strange far lands, yet none of them owned the whole
of heaven; for as Elder Gray said, "It is a big place and belongs to
God."

Susanna Hathaway went back to John thinking it her plain duty, and to me
it seems beautiful that she found waiting for her at the journey's end
a new love that was better than the old; found a husband to whom she
could say in that first sacred hour when they were alone together,
"Never mind, John! Let's forget, and begin all over again."

* * * * *

When Susanna and Sue alighted at the little railway station at Farnham,
and started to walk through the narrow streets that led to the suburbs,
the mother's heart beat more and more tumultuously as she realized that
the issues of four lives would be settled before nightfall.

Little did Sue reck of life issues, skipping like a young roe from one
side of the road to the other. "There are the hills, not a bit changed,
Mardie!" she cried; "and the sea is just where it was!... Here's the
house with the parrot, do you remember? Now the place where the dog
barks and snarls is coming next.... P'raps he'll be dead ... or p'raps
he'll be nicer.... Keep close to me t