“Di’monds and pearls in the Lowlands, Lowlands, Di’monds and pearls in the Lowlands low; Daddy was a tailor, But I will die a sailor, And bury me my heart in the Low lands low!” When the song was finished the old sailor looked up and saw his wife gaping in the doorway. “Great bobstays! ‘Liza,” he said, “Ain’t you got a drop of cider for Mis’ Merion to wet her throat with? You’d let her sing herself dry as pop-corn, I believe, and never stir a finger.” “Oh, _Mr._ Patton!” said the poor woman, and went to fetch the cider, a great content shining in her face. It was a good day when her husband said “Great bobstays!” Meantime Grandmother was not much missed at the Farm. Manuel indeed seemed more at ease when she was not there; he did not look at her much in these days, nor speak to her except when need was. She never seemed to notice, but was quiet and cheerful as she always had been. As for Rachel, she saw nothing, heard nothing, but Manuel. She seemed all day in a kind of breathless dream of joy. But she meant to be good to Grandmother. She was glad that Grandmother had given up her room to them, and taken the little back one; she gloried in sitting at the head of the table once more, and ruling all like a queen. Manuel said she was a queen; “Queen Poppy” he used to call her; and Rachel thought it quite true; if only she had had the luck to be born a princess, and Manuel a prince! Yes, she meant to be good to Grandmother. “Why, Grandmother,” she said one day at table, “your hair is beginning to turn! Look, Manuel! see the white hairs!” Manuel looked, and his face darkened, but he said nothing. “I declare,” said Rachel, “that’s queer enough. I’d like to know what care you have, Grandmother, to turn your hair gray. I expect it’s not having any that’s done it.” “Yes, Rachel,” said Grandmother; “perhaps that is it.” CHAPTER VII HOW THE LIGHT CAME TO HER ALL this was before the child came. With the coming of that little creature the world changed once more for Grandmother. It was in the early autumn; the cardinal flowers were past, but the St.-John’s-wort was in its bloom of tarnished gold, and the fringed gentian, too, was beginning to open its blue eyes. Anne Peace remembered this, because she had just been out gathering gentians, and was coming home with her hands full of the lovely things, when she saw her mother come to the door of Merion House and wave a white apron. Anne dropped the flowers. “Oh! Rachel!” she said; and came running over. The white apron meant that it was a girl; if it were a boy the blue tablecloth was to be waved. “Doing well!” said Mother Peace. “Grandmother has the baby in the back chamber; you can see it, if you like, Anne, only go quiet.” As if Anne were ever anything but quiet! Noiselessly she sped up the back stairs, and opened the door of the little bedchamber. There she saw—Madonna!