"Why, certainly, as the understanding is now, Miss Langham will expect to call often, I suppose," said Notely. "Oh, dear me! yes," cried Grace Langham. "Are we--ahem!"--Dr. Spearmint could not lift those mild blue eyes--"are we engaged?"--his sweet voice sinking, almost inaudible. "Oh, positively, doctor! Why, of course! Oh, dear me! good-by, poor dear. Oh, how pathetically amusing!" said she, walking with Notely toward the carriage. A tall girl had come up, and stood in the shadow, in the doorway. Notely, catching a glimpse of her in passing, lifted his cap, his face burning, his eyes glowing, with a look of intense love and of possession. Grace Langham turned, with a woman's instinct. Vesty, standing there, dim and tall, in her laceless, fashionless gown, met her glance with a long, serious look that contained nothing either of alarm or suspicion. "I know," murmured Grace. "I've heard the name of 'Vesty'--_that_ is Vesty." "That is Vesty," said her companion. "And you love her, I believe," said Grace Langham to her own breast, but sighed aloud; a gentle, bewitching sigh that divined deeper of Notely's mood than further laughter would have done then. As they passed out of sight, riches and gay things and the last light of day seemed to go with them. The mirth the children were having, congratulating Dr. Spearmint on his engagement, sounded crude. "Nature has done so much for me, you know," he said, with his weak, throbbing vanity, his hand nervously on the blue tie. Vesty went over to him and put both hands on his head. The children hushed. "Here are the pennies for my berries, Uncle Benny," she said quietly. "I've taken just a quart." "Yes, yes; all right, Vesty. I'm--ahem!--_engaged_, Vesty. Such a bew-tiful----" Vesty held her hands on his head. "Uncle Benny" (she would never, even to please him, call him Dr. Spearmint), "you must not think of that. She did not mean that. Besides, you have promised to be always a friend to me, don't you remember?--and to lead the children home from school. You know your mother expects"--they glanced up together at the picture--"that you will do what Jesus told you about doing--that about leading the little children home from school. What if one of them should get lost, or hurt? O Uncle Benny!" "Oh, my!" he gasped. "I didn't think, Vesty," tears streaming down his pale but now placid and restored face. Vesty smiled, standing there. A light crossed her face; she began to sing: "The road is winding, the road is dark, Sail away to Galilee!" * * * * * * Her voice seemed to me, in that dim hour, to take up Uncle Benny and bear him away, with his great hurt, to the breast of his mother, in heaven, to be healed. He joined her in the chorus, and then they sang together, she modulating sweetly her full, rich tones to his. Her voice made heavenly rapture of Uncle Benny's song: