woman's mind, and with it came the bride. When the other children had
gone away, Miss Morgan let them go with her blessing, and was glad of
their good fortunes. But this last child to go had been Miss Morgan's
pet. As the lonely spinster sat there she recalled how the child had
been moulded by her; how she had fancied the child's heart was hers,
cherishing in it the ideals, the sentiment, the tendernesses that the
older heart had held sacred for a lifetime. Miss Morgan recalled how
she and the girl had mingled their tears over the first long dress
that their hands made, knowing, each of them, that it meant the coming
of the parting. As she looked into the awful vistas of the stars, the
woman knew that she was one of God's creatures, all alone--without one
soul that she might even signal to.

[Illustration: _The first long dress_.]

The word "alone" came to her so strangely that she repeated it in a
whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and she put
her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the word "alone"
until sleep soothed her.

The morning sunlight helped Miss Morgan to put aside the problems of
the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went about her work, but
it did not lift the silence from the house. The rooms that a few days
before had been vocal with life, were so dead that the clock ticking
in the parlor might be heard in the kitchen. The canary's cheerful
song echoed shrilly through the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him,
"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still--you'll drive me wild."
But her voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing
in her ears brought on a headache. When she put a paper over the cage,
the clock annoyed her. She was irritated by a passing boy whistling