ryl, don't you love the stars? _You're_ quiet now----"

Beryl giggled.

"Robin--I just remembered! Do you realize we gave our--Queen--_her own
book for Christmas_?"

"Beryl, as _sure_ as anything! Oh, how funny!"

EPILOGUE

A STORY AFTER THE STORY

In a hammock hung between two leafing apple trees, a woman lay, so very
still that she seemed sleeping. A fitful breeze stirred the pale foliage
over her head, now and then showering her with pink petals from the
lingering blossoms; from beneath her rose the damp sweet fragrance of
soft earth and green grass, nearby a meadow-lark sang plaintively;
somewhere a robin called arrogantly to his mate in the nest; from the
valley, stretching below the sloping orchard, a violet mist lifted.

A tender smile played over the lips of the reclining woman and her eyes
stared through the lacy canopy of green into the blue sky, where fleecy
clouds sailed off to the west and south.

A lingering echo went singing through her heart. "It is all yours, Moira
Lynch! It is all yours!" The beauty around her--the promise of spring,
the green of orchard and meadow and distant hill, the rest, the
contentment--the happiness, and oh, most precious, the fulfilment.

There was never a day now, in Mother Moira's life, so busy that she
could not snatch a moment to go over, in reverent appreciation, the
blessings that were hers. And no longer were her dreams--for nothing
could change the dreaming heart of the little woman--for herself or
even for her big Danny; they were for her fine lad, a man now, and
Beryl, working so earnestly for her ambition, and little Robin, who
would always _be_ little Robin, and the imp of a Susy, ruddy cheeked and
happy-hearted.

How long, long ago seemed those days when, a slip of a girl, she had
dreamed on that other hillside of a future that would be hers; how
dazzling had been the pictures she had fancied; how much she had dared
to ask. In her youthful bravado she had laughed at Destiny and had made
so bold as to declare Destiny might even then be weaving a bit of gold
into the drab fabric of her life.

(Faith, was not little Robin her bit of gold? Had not the wonderful
change begun in their lives after little Robin came to the Manor?)

Five years had passed, since she and her big Danny had moved from the
village to the little farm that was "just around the corner." During
them she and big Danny had been alone a great deal of the time,
excepting for littl