o herself, and fell asleep with the tears upon her
cheek.

Her sister, in the next room to hers, with the same new dream in her
heart, did not creep into any baby's arms for sympathy. Lizzy Gurney
never had a pet, dog or child. She sat by the window waiting, her shawl
about her head in the very folds McKinstry had wrapped it, motionless,
as was her wont. But for the convulsive movement of her lips now and
then, no gutta-percha doll could be more utterly still. As the night
wore down into the intenser sleep of the hours after midnight, her watch
grew more breathless. The moon sank far enough in the west to throw
the beams directly across her into the dark chamber behind. She was a
small-moulded woman, you could see now: her limbs, like those of a cat,
or animals of that tribe, from their power of trance-like quiet, gave
you the idea of an intense vitality: a gentle face,--pretty, the
villagers called it, from its waxy tint and faint coloring,--you wished
to do something for her, seeing it. Paul Blecker never did: the woman
never spoke to him; but he noted often the sudden relaxed droop of the
eyelids, when she sat alone, as if some nerve had grown weary: he had
seen that peculiarity in some women before, and knew all it meant. He
had nothing for her; her hunger lay out of his ken.

It grew later: the moon hung now so low that deep shadows lay heavy over
the whole valley; not a breath broke the sleep of the night; even the
long melancholy howl of the dog down in camp was hushed long since. When
the clock struck two, she got up and went noiselessly out into the open
air. There was no droop in her eyelids now; they were straight, nerved,
the eyes glowing with a light never seen by day beneath them. Down the
long path into the cornfield, slowly, pausing at some places, while her
lips moved as though she repeated words once heard there. What folly was
this? Was this woman's life so bare, so empty of its true food, that she
must needs go back and drag again into life a few poor, happy moments?
distil them slowly, to drink them again drop by drop? I have seen
children so live over in their play the one great holiday of their
lives. Down through the field to the creek-ford, where the stones lay
for crossing, slippery with moss: she could feel the strong grasp of the
hand that had led her over there that night; and so, with slow, and yet
slower step, where the path had been rocky, and she had needed cautious
help. Into the thick