worked and struggled and
sometimes very nearly starved and here was some one assuring her that
these struggles were over forever, that she needn't work hard any
more, or ever worry again. Could it be true? And all to come from Miss
Cynthia's daughter!

Robinette bent down and kissed the wrinkled old face softly.

"Good-night, Nursie dear," she said. "I'm not going to stay any longer
with you to-day, because you're tired. Have a good sleep, and waken up
strong and bright."

"Good-night, Missie, good-night, dear," the old woman said. Her face
had taken on an expression of such peacefulness as it had never worn
before.

She turned over on her pillow and closed her eyes, scarcely waiting
for Robinette to leave the room.

"I've been allowed to do that, anyway," Robinette said to herself,
standing in the doorway to look back at the quiet sleeper, and then
looking forward to a little boat nearing the shore. The cottage
sheltered almost the only object that connected her with her past; the
boat, she felt, held all her future.

* * * * *

The river, when Lavendar rowed himself across it, was very quiet. "The
swelling of Jordan," as Robinette called the rising tide, was over;
now the glassy water reflected every leaf and twig from the trees that
hung above its banks and dipped into it here and there.

Mooring his boat at the landing, Mark sauntered up to Mrs. Prettyman's
cottage, and having tapped lightly at the door to let Mrs. Loring
know of his arrival, as they had agreed he should do, he went along
the flagged pathway into the garden, and sat down on the edge of the
low wall that divided it from the river. Just in front of him was the
little worn bench where he had first seen Robinette as she sat beside
her old nurse with the tiny shoe on her lap. It was scarcely a
fortnight ago; yet it seemed to him that he could hardly remember the
kind of man he had been that afternoon; a new self, full of a new
purpose, and at that moment of a new hope, had taken the place of the
objectless being he had been before.

Everything was very still; there was scarcely a sound from the village
or from the shipping farther down the river. Lavendar fancied he heard
Robinette's clear voice within the cottage; then he started suddenly
and the blood rushed to his heart as he listened to her light steps
coming along the paved footpath.

"Here you are!" she whispered. "Let us not speak too loud, fo