pened to go into her spare room that evening, she
saw from it a light shining through a gap in the trees on the hill. She
knew that it shone from the Spencers' spare room. So it was Sylvia's
light. The Old Lady stood in the darkness and watched it until it went
out--watched it with a great sweetness breathing in her heart, such as
risen from old rose-leaves when they are stirred. She fancied Sylvia
moving about her room, brushing and braiding her long, glistening
hair--laying aside her little trinkets and girlish adornments--making
her simple preparations for sleep. When the light went out the Old
Lady pictured a slight white figure kneeling by the window in the soft
starshine, and the Old Lady knelt down then and there and said her own
prayers in fellowship. She said the simple form of words she had always
used; but a new spirit seemed to inspire them; and she finished with
a new petition--"Let me think of something I can do for her, dear
Father--some little, little thing that I can do for her."

The Old Lady had slept in the same room all her life--the one looking
north into the spruces--and loved it; but the next day she moved into
the spare room without a regret. It was to be her room after this; she
must be where she could see Sylvia's light, she put the bed where she
could lie in it and look at that earth star which had suddenly shone
across the twilight shadows of her heart. She felt very happy, she
had not felt happy for many years; but now a strange, new, dream-like
interest, remote from the harsh realities of her existence, but none the
less comforting and alluring, had entered into her life. Besides, she
had thought of something she could do for Sylvia--"a little, little
thing" that might give her pleasure.

Spencervale people were wont to say regretfully that there were no
Mayflowers in Spencervale; the Spencervale young fry, when they wanted
Mayflowers, thought they had to go over to the barrens at Avonlea, six
miles away, for them. Old Lady Lloyd knew better. In her many long,
solitary rambles, she had discovered a little clearing far back in the
woods--a southward-sloping, sandy hill on a tract of woodland belonging
to a man who lived in town--which in spring was starred over with the
pink and white of arbutus.

To this clearing the Old Lady betook herself that afternoon, walking
through wood lanes and under dim spruce arches like a woman with a glad
purpose. All at once the spring was dear and beautifu