"I _have_ sacrificed myself and I have never complained once. Not even when we were traveling around from place to place in a covered wagon, and sleeping on the ground, and when we had only oatmeal to eat day in and day out; not even when our babies were sick and we had no money to pay a doctor. I was afraid they were going to die, but Elijah did not know; he was busy with his work. That was after we came here, and I never told him." Amy did not look up, but Mrs. MacGregor was watching her. From under the veiling lids, she saw the tears gather, roll across the pink cheeks and fall on the work in her lap. Mrs. MacGregor did not know, perhaps Amy did not, whether the tears were for the past she was reciting, or for the future which she was fearing. Without looking up, she drew her hand across her eyes. "I don't know why I am telling you all this. I have never told any one before; not even my mother." Unflinchingly Mrs. MacGregor turned to Amy. "I have no doubt that you have done your duty so far as you have seen it; but here is the point. Are you willing to make further sacrifices, from your standpoint, the supreme sacrifice?" Amy's mind had been overstrained in an effort to follow even the small part of Mrs. MacGregor's words that was at all intelligible to her; there was a suggestion of petulance in her reply. "There is no need of any more sacrifice. Just see." She pointed through the roses to the dark green orange trees full of golden fruit which covered the hillside below them. "Elijah has no need to do more. He has enough for us all now. Even if he should leave the Water Company, he would have enough. When that is done, he will come home to me and I shall have him all to myself; I and the children." "Elijah's work is only begun. What he has done, is only a preparation for the work that is to be done, that he alone can do. Nothing must stand in his way, not even wife and children." Amy answered passionately. "He has done enough!"