A sudden gust of love came over him for her child. He thought he had loved it before, but it was startling now, filling him, turning his steps back toward the place where it lay.... 2 And all the time that they were searching widely from Auckland for their house, a little Englishwoman, growing old, sat waiting for them within an hour’s ride from the city. They found her at last and her stone cottage, rarely attractive in its neglect; and from the door-yard, an Odessian vista of sky and harbour and lifted shore-line.... They had even passed it before, their eyes turned farther afield. Bellair couldn’t ignore the analogy of the nearest woman, nor the stories of all the great spiritual quests--how the fleeces on a man’s doorstep turn golden, if he can only see. “I knew some one would come,” the little woman said. She had a mole on her nose and eyes that twinkled brightly. “In fact, I prayed.” Bellair smiled and thought of Fleury’s saying--that those who turn back two thousand years would find Him.... She had kept a boarding-house, and now the work was too much. Besides, the children of a younger sister back in the home in Essex were calling to her. “They need me in England,” she repeated. “And here, I have been unable to keep up the little house. I am too old now. My young men were so dear about it, but I was not making them comfortable. One’s heart turns home at the close----” She thought they did not understand; and explained all the meanings carefully--how in age, the temporal needs are not so keen, and the mind wanders back to the elder places.... Bellair stood apart, knowing that the two women could manage better alone.... The cottage faced the east a little to northward, and had been built of the broken rocks of the bluff and shore, its walls twenty inches thick and plastered on the stone within. The interior surprised them with its size, two bedrooms facing the sea and two behind, beside the living room (for dining, too, according to the early design) and the kitchen. They took it as it was, furniture and all, and loved the purchase. For several days she remained with them, helped and explained and amplified--suggesting much paint. Each day for an hour or so, there were tears. She had found her going not so easy, and the process was slow to accustom herself to the long voyage; the sense of detachment could not be hurried. She wanted them to see her whole plan of the place. Her dream had been to have evergreens cut in patterns and flower-beds in stars and crescents. Meanwhile with her years had grown up about her the wildest and most natural garniture of the stone cottage; vines and shrubs, the pines putting on a sumptuousness of low foliage altogether unapproved. Gradually it was all forgotten but the long voyage, and Bellair could help in making the details of that as simple and desirable as possible. In fact, he went with her to the ship....