If the cruel Barbara had not repented, and "laid her down in sorrow,"
she might well have grown to look like this handsome, white-haired
woman, with her keen blue eyes and queenly bearing.

Miss Vesta had never for an instant regretted the disposition of her
life, never even in the shadow of a thought; but this was the song she
used to sing in those old days, and somehow she always felt a thrill
(was it of pleasure or pain? she could not have told you) when the
child sang it.

But there may have been a "call," as Rosin the Beau would have said,
for some one else beside Vesta Dale; for a tall, pale girl, who has
been leaning against the wall pulling off the gray lichens as she
listened, now slips away, and goes home and writes a letter; and
to-morrow morning, when the mail goes to the next village, two people
will be happy in God's world instead of being miserable. And now? Oh,
now it is a merry song; for, after all, Melody is a child, and a happy
child; and though she loves the sad songs dearly, still she generally
likes to end up with a "dancy one."

"'Come boat me o'er,
Come row me o'er,
Come boat me o'er to Charlie;
I'll gi'e John Ross anither bawbee
To boat me o'er to Charlie.
We'll o'er the water an' o'er the sea,
We'll o'er the water to Charlie,
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go,
And live and die wi' Charlie.'"