music."

Beryl, always so ready in self-defense, stood mute before the old man's
charge. She had been scolded too often by this dear recluse to resent
it; she had, too, faith in anything he might say.

Then: "You just ought to know Robin," she burst out, irrelevantly, eager
that her old teacher should believe that, even though she might be a
selfish, thoughtless girl herself, she could recognize and respect the
good qualities in others.

"Forgive your old friend if he has hurt you. Go now to your blessed
mother and lay your good fortune at her feet. That I might see her
face!"

"And if she wants to use--_some_ of the money, will you help me?" asked
Beryl, in a meek voice.

"Ah, most surely. And proudly."

Beryl rode back to Miss Erne's in a contritely humble mood.

"I wish there were some sort of medicine one could take to make them
better inside their hearts! I wouldn't care _how_ nasty it tasted," she
mourned, impatient at the long, hard climb that must be hers if she ever
made of herself what her Jacques Henri wanted.

All of Miss Effie's coaxing could not keep Beryl from taking the
afternoon train to Wassumsic.

"I must tell my mother about the beads--at once!" she answered, firmly.

CHAPTER XXIII

ROBIN'S RESCUE

Just as the shrill of the train whistle echoed through the little
valley, Moira Lynch set her lighted lamp in the window. She did not sing
tonight as she performed the customary ceremony, nor had she for many
nights. Her throat seemed too tired, her arms dropped with the weight of
her lamp, a dull little pain at the back of her neck gripped her with a
pulling clutch.

The doctor had told her she was "tired out." She had gone to him very
secretly, lest Dale or big Danny should know and worry. But even to be
"just tired out" was very terrifying to Mother Moira--if her arms and
head and heart failed, who would take care of big Danny and keep a
little home for Dale and watch over Beryl?

With her habitual optimism she tried to laugh away her alarm, but the
pulling ache persisted and her arms trembled under tasks that before had
seemed as nothing. She told herself that it was all her own fault that
her big Danny seemed harder to please, but when, under a particularly
trying moment, she broke down and cried, she knew she was reaching the
end of her endurance.

"Did the train stop?" queried big Danny.

"Sure and it did!" cried Mrs. Moira, trying to throw excitement into
her voice to