ough beyond the edge of the world somebody had put out the light
forever. Her pale eyes grew luminous. The unaccustomed tears welled up
in them and trickled down the cheeks that had known so long a drought.
They rained on Natalie's head.

"Mother!" cried Natalie, looking up--"Mother!" Then she buried her face
again in Ann's bosom, and together they sobbed out all the oppressing
pain and grief of life's heavy moment. Not by strength alone, but also
by frailty, do mothers hold the hearts of their children. Natalie,
hearing and feeling her mother sob, passed beyond the bourn of
generations and knew Ann and herself as one in an indivisible, quivering
humanity.

Mammy's chair stopped rocking. She listened; then she got up and came
out on the veranda. Her eyes fell upon mother and daughter huddled
together in the dusk. She hovered over them. Her loose clothes made her
seem ample, almost stolid.

"Wha' fo' you chilun's crying?" she demanded.

"We're _not_ crying," sobbed Natalie.

"Huh!" snorted mammy. "Yo' jes come along outen this night air, bof of
yo', an' have yo' suppah. Come on along, Miss Ann. Come on along, yo'
young Miss Natalie."

"Just a minute, mammy; in just a minute," gasped Natalie. "You go put
supper on the table." Then she rose to her feet, and drew her mother up
to her. "Kiss me," she said and smiled. She was suddenly strong again
with the strength of youth.

Ann kissed her and she, too, almost smiled.

"Well, dear?" she said.

"We're going away," said Natalie, holding protecting arms around her
mother. "We're going to sell this place, and then we're just going away
into another world. This one's too rough for just women. We'll go see
that old house Aunt Jed left to me. I want to live just once in a house
that has had more than one life."

Day after day the ship moved steadily northward on an even keel. Upon
mammy, Natalie, and Mrs. Leighton a miracle began to descend. Years fell
from their straightening shoulders. At the end of a week, Ann Leighton,
kneeling alone in her cabin, began her nightly devotions with a paean
that sounded strangely in her own ears: "Oh, Thou Who hast redeemed my
life from destruction, crowned me with loving-kindness and tender
mercies, Who hast satisfied my mouth with good things so that my youth
is renewed like the eagle's!"

CHAPTER XXVII

Among Leighton's many pet theories was one that he called the axiom of
the propitious moment. Any tyro at life could te