"Thorndyke Bothwell, he went away--but there must be--some one to remember. The--letter--take it--to----" Then a spasm passed over the grim face upon the pillow. The fleeting sanity was vanishing--"The hearthstone--her--down at Trouble----" The candle flickered up luridly. The weak voice of the old woman shook and the eyes lost the lustre. "You must bide with her--at Trouble----" Cynthia could not understand; she had never seen the light fade from the face of one she loved, so the fixed stare, the cessation of speech, did not alarm her. "See, dear Aunt Ann, I will put my head down on your pillow, so! There now! Shut your eyes right close, and I'll sing you to sleep, honey." The candle decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. The long wick curled over, the tiny beam faded, and was--gone. Through the long night watches, May Thine angels spread Their white wings above me, Watching round my bed. Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights by repeating the tender words: Through the long night watches---- and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them. Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she ran, panting, stumbling--often pausing to rest--to Trouble Neck. "Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to Marcia Lowe. "And little Cyn?" "Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on." "And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!" CHAPTER XIX Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the homestretch. Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin and gloried in the title of "housekeeper." "Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the oven of the stove. "Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something better."