CHAPTER VIII


The Leightons, who settled at Nadir after a long year of pilgrimage,
looked, back upon the happy years at Consolation Cottage as the dead
might look back upon existence. They were changed indeed. Ann's skin had
lost the pale pink of transplanted Northern blood. Her sweet face had
almost lost the dignity of sorrow. It was lined, weather-beaten, at
times almost vacant. The Reverend Orme's black mane had suddenly turned
white in streaks. A perpetual scowl knitted his brows. To mammy's broad
countenance, built for vast smiles, had come a look of plaintive
despair.

Natalie and Lewis were at the weedy age of nine. It was natural that
they should have changed, but their change had gone beyond nature. Upon
them, as upon their elders, had settled the silences and the vaguely
wondering expression of those who live in lands of drought and hardship,
who look upon fate daily.

Both of the children had become thin and hard; but to Lewis had come a
greater change. His brown hair and eyes had darkened almost to black,
his skin taken on an olive tinge. His face, with its eager eyes
sometimes shining like the high lights in a deep pool or suddenly grown
slumberous with dreams, began to proclaim him a Leighton of the
Leightons. So evident became the badge of lineage that Ann and the
Reverend Orme both noticed it. To Ann it meant nothing, but in the
Reverend Orme it aroused bitter memories of his own boy. He began to
avert his eyes from Lewis.

It was about this time that Natalie and Lewis cut their names to Lew and