she caught sight of the girl and the tot in the doorway. She smiled
softly as the singer lady seated herself on the side of the bed and
took both her hand and that of the sleeping baby in a firm, young
one. A peculiar bond of sympathy had arisen between the girl and the
gentle old invalid, both fighting pain and anxiety. Mrs. Bostick
would lie for hours drinking in tales of Miss Wingate's travels in
the world, which she had timidly but eagerly asked for from the
beginning of their friendship. The girl knew that the anxious
mother-heart vas using her descriptions to fare forth on quests for
the wanderer into the wide world beyond the Harpeth Hills, that had
all her life bounded her horizon, and she sat by her long hours,
leading the way into the uttermost parts. After a fatherly greeting,
the Deacon departed with the children to his bench under the trees
and left the two alone for their talk, and the long shadows were
stretched across the Road and the sun sinking beyond the Ridge
before the singer lady wended her way dejectedly home with the play-
wearied Martin Luther trailing beside her. She found Mother
Mayberry, much to her relieved astonishment, placidly rocking in her
accustomed place, with her palm-leaf ruffling the water-waves and a
fresh lawn tie blowing in the breeze.

"Come in, honey-hearts," she said eagerly, with bright tenderness
shining in her face for the girl and the barefoot young pilgrim; "I
have been setting here a-missing you both for a hour. With you and
my young mission boy both gone I'm like an old hawk-robbed hen. I
knew you was with Mis' Bostick, and I didn't come for you 'cause
somehow them rocking-chair-bed travels you and her take seems to
comfort her. I wouldn't interrupt one of 'em for the world, though I
was getting plumb lonesome. I was even a-hankering after that Tom
Mayberry what I left not over two hours ago."