soft
and heavy with resinous perfume. As he lay there in the stillness, the
pines stretched above him like the arches of some great cathedral. His
text came to him, "Come thou south wind and blow upon my garden." It
was a simple people to whom he would talk on the morrow, but these
things they could understand--the winds of heaven, and the stars, and
the little foxes that could spoil the grapes.

When he woke there was a mocking-bird singing. He had gone to sleep
obsessed by his sermon, uplifted. He woke with a sense of
loneliness--a great longing for human help and understanding--a longing
to look once more into Mary Ballard's clear eyes and to draw strength
from the source which had once inspired him.

John Ballard's Bible lay on the rug beside him. He opened it, and the
leaves fell apart at a page where a rose had once been pressed. The
rose was dead now, and had been laid away carefully, lest it should be
lost. But the impress was still there, as the memory of Mary's frank
friendliness was still in his mind.

It was a long time before he closed the book. But at last he sighed
and rose from his couch. It was inevitable, this drifting apart. Fate
would hold for Mary some brilliant future. As for him, he must go on
with his work alone.

Yet he realized, even in that moment of renunciation, that it was a
wonderful thing that he could at last go on alone. A year ago he had
needed all of Mary's strength to spur him to the effort, all of her
belief in him. Now with his heart still crying out for her, needing
her, he could still go on alone!

He drew a long breath, and looked up through the singing tree-tops to
the bit of sky above. He stood there for a long time, silent, looking
up into the shining sky.

At ten o'clock when he entered the circle of young pines, his
congregation was ready for him, sitting on the rough seats which the
men had fashioned, their eager faces welcoming him, their eyes lighted.

The children whom he had taught led in the singing of the simple old
hymns, and Roger read a prayer.

Then he talked. He withheld nothing of the poetry of his subject; and
they rose to his eloquence. And when light began to fill a man's eyes
or tears to fill a woman's--Roger knew that the work of the soul was
well begun.

Afterward he went among them, becoming one of them in friendliness and
sympathy, but set apart and consecrated by the wisdom which made him
their leader.

Among a group of m