For a long hour she stood at the end of the porch, looking across at Providence Nob, behind whose benevolent head the storm clouds of the day were at last sinking, lit by the glow of the fast-setting sun. The wind had died down and a deep peace was settling over the Valley, like a benediction from the coming night. Just for strength to go on, Rose Mary prayed out to the dim, blue old ridge and then turned to her ministrations to her assembling household. Uncle Tucker was so tired that he hardly ate the supper set before him, and before the last soft rays of the sun had entirely left the Valley he had smoked his pipe and gone to bed. And soon in his wake retired the General, with two of the small dogs to bear him company in his white cot. But the settling of Miss Lavinia for the night had been long, and had brought Rose Mary almost to the point of exhaustion. Tired out by her afternoon over in the little graveyard, Miss Amanda had not the strength to read the usual chapters of retiring service that Miss Lavinia always required of her, and so Rose Mary drew the candle close beside the bed and attempted to go on with her rubbing and read at the same time. And though, if read she must, the very soul of Rose Mary panted for the comfort of some of the lines of the Sweet Singer, Aunt Viney held her strictly to the words of her favorite thunderer, Jeremiah, and little Aunt Amandy bunched up under the cover across the bed fairly shook with terror as she buried her head in her pillow to keep out the rolling words of invective that began with an awful "_Harken_" and ended with "_Woe is me now, for my soul is wearied_!" "Now," concluded Miss Lavinia, "you can put out the light. Rose Mary, and if me and Amandy was to open our eyes on the other side of the river it would be but a good thing for us. Lay the Bible in that newspaper on top of that pile of _Christian Advocates_, with a string to tie 'em all up after morning lesson, to be carried away. The Lord bless and keep you, child, and don't forget to latch the front door on us all for the last time!" Softly Rose Mary drew the door partly closed and left them in the quiet of the fast-deepening purple dusk. She peeped into Uncle Tucker's room and assured herself by his sonorous breathing that rest at last was comforting him, and for a moment in her own room she bent over the little cot where the General and his two spotted servitors lay curled up in a tangle and fast in the depths of sleep. Then she opened wide the old hall door that had for more than a century swung over the sill marked off by the length of the intrepid English foremother who had tramped the wilderness trail to possess what she, herself, was giving up.