Then I started for to walk afoot. But the dark come down, an’ every sound I heard, it stopped the tickin’ of me heart, like a clock. When I heard the steps of one along the road, I crep’ into the bushes, to hide till they’d pass. Your voice, Martha, was never your own at all. ’Twas like a man’s voice. The height of you showed like a tower itself, back o’ the lantren. I’d never know ’twas a female. I’d no stren’th to resist a wild tramp. So, when you ast me, ’answer who it is,’ the tongue in me head was dumb. But, ’tis glad I am to be home again, surely." Sam went to the front door to shake out the ashes from his pipe. When he came back Martha was helping Ma up the stairs to her own room. "Won’t the childern be surprised an’ pleased to see you back, in the mornin’," she was saying heartily. Cora, bringing up the rear, remarked with importance, "Mother sent’m to bed sooner’n usual ’cause to-morrow morning we all got to get up early. We’re going with Miss Claire, in the la’nch, across the lake, to see a blue herring, she’s got there in a cove." "A blue herring, is it? Well, well!" said Ma abstractedly. Cora went on. "Mother said when Francie told her, firstoff, you’d gone away for good, an’ wasn’t coming back—Mother said, ’No matter how much I feel my loss, I must try to be cheerful.’ Mother said it was a shock, but you mustn’t let the world see your suffering. The world’s got troubles of its own." Ma’s dull eyes brightened. She gazed up searchingly into her daughter-in-law’s face. "And, did you say that indeed, Martha?" she questioned. Martha punched a pillow pugilistically. "Very likely," she answered holding the ticking with her teeth, while she pulled the clean slip over it. "Yes, I said it." The old woman slowly, tremulously undressed. After Cora had gone, and Ma was in bed, Martha lingered a moment, before turning out the light. "I’m sorry you had such disappointment," she said. "But doncher care, Ma. Sometime us two’ll go down to New York together, an’ I’ll give you the time o’ your life." For a moment Ma made no response. Then her quavering voice shook out the words, as if they had been stray atoms, falling from a sieve: "It ain’t the disappointment I’m after mindin’ so much," she lamented. "I could thole that, itself—but—(perhaps it’s a silly old woman I am)! but the notion it’s got into me head that—that—maybe the lot o’ them—_didn’t want me!_" Martha extinguished the light with a jerk. "Oh, go to sleep, Ma, an’ quit your foolishness. I’ll say to you what I say to the childern. If you cry about nothin’, look out lest the Lord’ll be givin’ you somethin’ to cry _for_." "Then you don’t think——?" "Oh, _go_ to sleep, Ma," repeated Martha, as if the question were not debatable. The sun was barely up when the children began to stir. "Say, Sabina," Cora whispered, "I bet you don’t know what’s in Ma’s room." A quick sortie, and Sabina did know. Then Sammy knew, and Francie knew.