I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me. "Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake--such a great--a lost--mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to come. I wanted you." To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I did not touch her. "Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how _you_ have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn." She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from her, as some blind instrument of torture. "The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?" "Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me! "No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life--misguided and lost though it be--_given_." She looked up, dim, again. "You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood! She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood again, a striking picture there. "They did need _me_," she said; "_he_ needed me more than Notely. And I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the children." I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake was full of feathers, Vesty." She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made her laugh. "Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of the natural flavor." "Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?" "Infinitely." "Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes. Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of humanity, could she have looked like that! "Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be jealous of me." I smiled at her. She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we are married?" "Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always." "That is the way," she said. "That is the way," I said, and left her. When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes.