The women faced each other--the strangest moment in three lives.... All the ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms finer than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle, shine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning, adoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little children and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi and the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed between the women shone the secret of the meaning of men--God-taught Motherhood. To Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous revelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may never know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets to the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the Spirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater than his mother. To the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to the women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon. They turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula: "I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces the East." THE END About Will Levington Comfort _Author of "She Buildeth Her House" and "Routledge Rides Alone"_ (_Eight Editions_) Well-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to American magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little over a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom has the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of praise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's "Routledge Rides Alone," acknowledged to be the best book of 1910. While young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in experience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and saw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he rode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted from vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and prisons. Stricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was next ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the Legations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin Wall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack of fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital ship "Relief." In the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War, Mr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of world-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and, securing a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern newspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of Liaoyang his description of which in "Routledge Rides Alone" fairly overwhelms the reader.