hen told she had to die; and to Andy it seemed he
loved that Summer so fond and fair, more than any and all. Andy was
sixty-eight then and for full forty years had done his winter stint and
his Big 'W' Work in the hills. But he did not feel tired that year. No;
he simply felt odd-like, as if it might be something unforeseen was
going to happen to him and it would not tell its name to him first. (You
know how you feel that way sometimes--as if wings were flying over your
head and you think you see their shadows on the grass; but you look up
and see no wings at all in the sky. Then you say: "Isn't the sky a queer
color to-day?" and you feel uneasy.)

So it came about that while that Summer lingered and hid and ran, Andy
again asked the old, old question he had always asked and to which he
had never received an answer:

"Shall I be weaving _this_ lass her shroud?"

And, lo and behold, the Voice, very soft and full of kindness, said: "If
'twill please you, you might as well, Andy. Your Work is done. But--a
question first. Have you ever once regretted the labor and the loss I
have put upon you?"

Andy said to himself, "I am about to die." In a loud, clear tone though
he answered: "Not once, O Voice! The joy I felt, the triumph I felt as
I handed her a bit of master-work and she flung it to the idle winds was
in itself enough. As I look back at it, there has been no labor and
there has been no loss. I have heard God's whisper in my ears, and that
will be sufficient for me until the end of eternity."

So the Voice said: "You know all there is to know. Weave the shroud."

Andy took steel-blue floss and at right angles he shot it with white;
and he made it so thin and fine that a million miles of it would not
weigh a hundred pounds. And he said to himself, "I will weave a hundred
pounds of it; and I'll wrap her in it myself, all softly, around and
around, like as if she was a dead bride of the Green Folk's king, I
will."

So Andy set to work, grim as Death himself. He bit his lip hard, and a
queer shine came into his eyes; and he worked day and night, fast and
faster, eating nothing and sleeping not at all--smoking away like a
demon on his pipe and weaving miles and miles to his heart's desire.

"It shall be my master-bit," he told himself.

He never even looked out the window, so close was he on the heel of his
work. "It shall be my master-bit," he kept saying to himself. The light
got poorer and dimmer and there was