It was hard, cruelly hard, yet, just as Aunt Alida had prophesied, already a song was singing in Beth’s heart that she had not failed of her obligations as one of the Order of the Strong of Heart. She had chosen, not what she wanted, but what was right. And poor old lonely, repressed Aunt Rebecca would be glad. CHAPTER XIX THE WONDER-WINTER MELTS IN SPRING How changed the house looked to Beth, now that it was settled that she was to leave it! Only a short half year ago it looked unfamiliar, its grandeurs frightened her. Now it seemed to her like home and the more than simple house of her former life came before her memory like something utterly strange and barren. She went up the broad stairway between Natalie and Alys silently, slowly; all three girls were trying not to cry. “I suppose her mortal life seemed queer to a changeling, too, when she first went back from fairy-land,” Beth said aloud, speaking out of her thoughts. “We’ll see you after a while,” said Alys, as the three paused at Beth’s door. Her voice drooped downward through the short sentence and ended in melancholy. “You wouldn’t have thought that Alys would have minded much,” said Beth to herself, as she closed the door of her room behind her. The fire burned low on the hearth, just a stick or two, charred in the middle, but still in form on the ends, left of Frieda’s early fire which had brightened the room in the early morning. Even when her first glimpse of this perfect chamber had struck her mute with admiration on her arrival, it had never looked to Beth so utterly delightful as it did that moment when she saw it with farewell to it in her heart. She crossed over and dropped down in her favorite low white willow rocker beside the hearth. She twisted around, laid her arms over its back, her face down on them and cried as hard, yet as relievingly as she could. A good thorough cry had to be gone through with, so it was well to get it over and done on the spot. Frieda came in and found Beth thus. She stood terror-stricken, waiting an explanation when Beth could give it. “Miss Beth, Miss Beth dear? Miss Beth, darling little Miss Beth?” she said questioningly. “I’m going home, Frieda,” sobbed Beth, straightening herself and futilely rolling a perfectly wet ball of handkerchief around in first one, then the other eye. “I’ve had a letter from--from a neighbor at home, and she tells me my Aunt Rebecca is pining. She never would tell me herself, so I’m sure it’s true. Besides, Miss Tappan knows. Of course it would be dreadful to stay here--I mean at Cortmeer--having the loveliest time in the world, while poor Aunt Rebecca pined. Aunt Alida says so, too. So I’ve got to go--soon. I might have known a wonder-summer couldn’t come right after a wonder-winter.” Frieda fetched a dry handkerchief from Beth’s drawer, practically expressing the sympathy no words could convey, nor was it an accident that she offered Beth now her favorite handkerchief.