They did not go far. By the path that led to the pasture bars and thence to Mary Wescott’s boulder, they saw the familiar red cart, still bedecked with its colors. Halting the car beside it, they hurried up the path, over the hummocks starred with violets, and through the alders to the boulder. There by the spring, beneath a wild plum-tree, white with bloom, lay Mary Christmas in the evening light, her face relaxed, her busy hands at rest. A song sparrow on the stunted pine tree filled the still air with notes like crystals in sunlight, and a robin called from the wild crab-apple on the hill. But Father and Mother Wescott knew, as they stood there looking upon the quiet face beneath the white blossoms, that Mary Christmas’ restless, shining spirit was heeding none of these. It had gone, they knew, in a quick flash of light across the gray, tossing ocean, to her own land, where for a season it would wander with the winds on treeless plains, look upon the ark which no eye had seen, and leave its healing power in the dim aisles of the church at Etchmiadzin. Then, satisfied and at peace, it would go to dwell in the Everlasting Halls of God! XII MARY CHRISTMAS DAYS There are still Mary Christmas days in the Wescott village--days when the sun lies warm on the orchard grass and the petals drift through the bright air like great lazy snowflakes. Then Father Wescott puts away the town report and certain prophetic statistics as to the fall election, closes the office, and comes home at noon for the day, swinging up the street in precisely the manner of so many years ago. In the afternoon, under the apple trees, he drowses a bit over his paper, unless there happens to be a disturbing article on the spread of Radicalism, while the bees hum among the blossoms, and while Mrs. Wescott, whom the right of franchise has not changed a whit, completes a red mitten for her oldest grandson. But when the shadows grow longer and the village children drive home their cows, they talk of Mary Christmas. In the evening, as they sit on the porch, Mrs. Wescott wears a shawl in whose delicate traceries are birds and butterflies, stars and tired sheep. Once Father Wescott shamefacedly took a string of red stones from his pocket and put it around his neck, where it glowed against his white collar and shirt, red as the geraniums in the porch boxes or as great drops of blood. It must be admitted, however, that during this procedure he was genuinely embarrassed and kept a vigilant eye on the driveway and the door.