mate with dogs, and horses, and solemn, aloof kine. But words didn't come to her somehow. It was such a drawback!

And when he was disappointed, she stood there, dumb as a stone. Nothing would formulate. All she could think of was to lift his hand and kiss it quietly, and oftentimes a tear would come because he was hurt. But she could say nothing that would make things seem easy. All she could think of would be to take him out in the dusky night, and look in silence at the stars. All the immensity of gleaming worlds . . . so scattered, so varied, and not one ugliness. And one felt drawn out of oneself toward the beautiful, terrific heavens, and all the worries and troubles seemed of less consequence than the droning of a bee. A little sum of money lost, a pretty ambition frustrated, a cheap man's jibe, those hurt for a moment, but how little they mattered under the clouds of stars.

And if she could take him out and be silent with him, while the crickets sang and the little frogs croaked their funny dissonant harmony, and earth rolled along eastward under the arching heavens. But maybe he was right-she was only a funny dreaming kid.

She had come to the Sound now, and quiet as a lake the broad stretch of water was before her. And here and there was a steamer, and southward a spluttering tug pulling a line of barges rigged with square auxiliary sails. Her mind leaped forward to eight weeks from then, when the regattas would begin, and from all parts of the Sound, from north of it, Marblehead even, the boats would come with white curving sails to fight for supremacy. Great forty-footers, and the smaller thirties, and the fast P-boats with their immense Bermuda rigs, and little handicap sloops, and catboats manned by boys in bathing-suits, all scurrying, swishing, all in turn jibbing, coming about, jockeying to go over the line with the gun.

And then, too, soon the great blind porpoises would come gambolling, shining like negroes, follow-my-leader. And the bluefish would run. And on the rocks the querulous bird population would screech and chatter. And one would look out for the boats going to New Bedford and to Fall River . . . their calm progress like a

steady horse's, and their lights. And the great lumber schooners would come down from Nova Scotia, with their blue-eyed taciturn sailors, to anchor at City Island. A little quiver underneath her heart reminded her. How should she tell Barry she was going to have a little baby? When should she tell him, and what should she say? She must be careful. She mustn't disturb his work. And would he be happy about it? Or would he— would he she bit her lips suddenly— would he not be pleased?

II

It seemed to her that it was all one with the coming of the springtime, the budding of the flowers, and the westward wind, the miracle of the baby. One was first one's own sentient self, bending to the wind with the trees, breasting the curling waves of summer, and patiently listening to the song of some ambitious bird, and before you knew how, a little thing had come nestling under your wing. The flowers had made you sister, and the wind protected you, and the grass was careful lest your foot should touch a stone. Whence did it come, the little life that was delicate as the petal of the apple-blossom, soft as a little bird asleep in a nest? In summer one felt it had come over the bending grasses and between the gentle rains, and the robins did it reverence. And in spring it was borne on the first generous delicate wind, and the trees nodded their highest newest boughs. And in autumn the Brown Woman of the Woods brought it, while the little chipmunks stared. In winter it came with a shaft of the loud aggressive sun. However? Wherever? But one moment you were yourself, alone, with only your own problems. And suddenly you had been trusted with something softer than flowers, more precious than diamonds, a little molecule of life itself. Such a trust!

Every woman had a little dream about her child. A woman of the tenements. might see in a little parcel of flesh and blood a one-day president of her great republic. And another might see in him a minister of God bearing a light to thousands. And a third would see in a little daughter a voice that would gush forth in

immense harmony. And some who knew the bitter tooth of want would dream of their children as powerful merchants, with great cars and yachts. Such rosy stories do women think in their heads.

But all Berenice could imagine was the little daughter of fair tresses in her small bed at the close of day, when the short Occidental twilight hovered like a bird, and night came trudging westward with dun feet. Below in their drawing-room people would be assembled for dinner or for the playing of cards, laughter and candle-light, and the glow of an open hearth, and tobacco sending up bluishgray smoke from little tubes. But Berenice would be alone with the fair child in the dim nursery, putting her to sleep and teaching her the rhyme that is a child's first prayer and, at the same time, a charm against evil spirits; against great bulks in the darkness that make little children scream; against strange gray women who take small humans from the warm beds mothers put them in and whisk them to deep underground burrows where trolls and misshapen demons are, replacing them with wizened ill-natured changelings. Against all the powers of darkness the little prayer was potent:

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take!"

And then, reverently:

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

Guard the bed that I lie on!"

And when the small eyes were closed and the minute mouth had taken on the sweet smile of sleeping, and the hands had relaxed into white starry flowers, she would steal down-stairs to her guests, to the gracious room where sleek, well-bred women and kindly burly men were gathered to dine in company or to play cards, where the bluish smoke rose in whorls from the white tubes of tobacco, and there was soft candle-light and tinkling glass. And she would feel happy there, secure. There would be no apprehension in her. For above at the four corners of the bed where the minute humanity slept were four figures of great power, four lumbering, grizzled fishermen - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John!

III

THE old lady watched Berenice walk down the road, pausing for a moment at her beautiful needlework to admire her young daughter-in-law's slim willowy figure, the eager pose of her head, her brown beautifully plaited hair. The apple-green of her dress and the blue-green of the trees-she made such a beautiful picture, and the old lady shook her head and sighed.

And one might imagine the old lady saying: When I was young I was as lissome as that, as pretty, had as eager a head. Time flies and we grow old. Ah, the fine days of young womanhood!

But that was not in her mind at all: she shook her head because she knew the heartaches, the difficulties, the terrors the young girl must go through before she attained to the reward of women: wisdom and peace.

For they all came to that in the latter end, the old lady thought-the girls who started out dancing, and the girls whose eyes were troubled with thought, and the girls deep as deep rivers, and the shallow girls who angled for a honeyed word. And life, like some deft schoolmistress, caught them and taught them and put wisdom in their heads, and in their hearts little modest flowers, like forget-me-nots. And the sad girls learned laughter from little children on the floor, and the wayward ones learned loyalty from trouble, and great emotional currents put depths into the shallow ones. And life seemed so hard, the present so brutal, the future terrible as an army with banners-but one day it was gone. All was past. And in retrospect they seemed so little pain to have had to have learned such a great lesson, to have come to such a sweet place! If one came through it, it was so much worth while.

The hazards one made so much of. Oh! Didn't she know!

It seemed to her as she looked back now very strange that all the little tragedies of her life appeared to have faded and all the happiness intensified, and this was peculiar, for at the time the pain seemed so poignant and the happiness so diverse, so hard to grasp. A night at a theatre, for instance, twenty years ago, and a dinner

before it, and a supper afterward, how queer one could remember all that, even the tunes the orchestra played, the clothes one wore, what this man said, how this woman looked. And one thought of the night young Barry, below writing, was so near to death, and the utter terror, the tragedy of that time had faded. And one remembered only how pretty he looked, how kind the doctor was, how Mr. Valance, her husband, had put his hand on her shoulder, in his big kindly way.

If young people knew how these things came out, they wouldn't worry so much, but there was no use telling them. They would have to find out for themselves.

She had never been one to admire nature, had the old lady, but one thing she did know, she knew people and she knew life. Berenice was all right, a very fine girl, for all her romantic thoughts, but Barry worried her occasionally. He was so intense about his career in writing. And she felt in her heart that it was not going to be a success. One knew, somehow. For instance this: she could tell whether or not a novice was going to be a great pianist, because she could see him as a master, if he were ever to arrive; his power, his aloofness, his concentration. She could see a merchant. She supposed it was a gift, just feeling what people

were.

And her son Barry below, she could not see him. And she wasn't going to tell him, either. Men were queer. They bore grudges, even to their mothers. It was better to let him fight himself out, and be conquered, drop; and then pick himself up, and think it over, and go to something else with a pang, and more wisdom. And month by month the disappointment would pass, until the ramping of his early days was no more to him than a quaint gesture. And years later he would meet some great author for a moment, and be very courteous, a little shy with him. But he would never tell him of the struggle on his own account, never mention a word-ah, she knew, she knew! Barry would be all right. Only-only he must be broken. All humans must be broken, as Mr. Valance, her husband, had said horses are. And some horses are great race-horses, and some are hacks, and some hunters, and some just simply for

use. But all have to be broken. And they are nearly all kind, nearly all good, as human beings are. For nearly all men and women are good, the old lady thought. One had to know their heartstheir appearance, their gestures meant nothing-and their hearts ought to have a chance to grow. And then they would all be good. Those who weren't had had the growth of their hearts stunted somehow. And they weren't to be hated, but pitied, poor things.

If any one, any young person, were to know what her thoughts were, the old lady smiled, he would say she had known no trouble in life, was shallow, did not understand the tragedy of things.

Well, she had had her share of life; her troubles as well as the rest of them. She had been a very sensitive girl. When she married Mr. Valance, her husband, she had hardly known him-for such was the custom in her day, that he should satisfy her parents of his affection rather than herself-and when the day came to leave her father and mother and her four brothers and her sisters, to leave the house she had known since she was born, to leave her own virginal room, and go away with a strange, terrifying, fascinating manwhy it was like jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim. In those days young girls did not know, were scared. And yet everything had been all right. She loved Mr. Valance, her husband. No two could ever have been so close as she and he. And she smiled at the terror of her leaving the home.

And before Barry was born-oh, the ghastly nights, the ghastly, ghastly nights, of lying awake and fearing, fearing, and the hideous unimaginable dreams, and the birth itself, the surge of pain like some cruel driving knife, and strength ebbing in a fast flood! And came kind unconsciousness, and when she woke there was a sort of white peace in her, and the little dark-haired boy, by some beneficent magic, was on the broad nurse's lap. And the strange miracle of how she had forgotten all the pain so soon, how little it seemed, how natural. And how ready she would have been again. A little daughter, she had thought, how nice it would have been! But it wasn't to have been.

And when Mr. Valance, her husband, had died, for her had come, she thought, the end of the world. Yet now all she could remember was the peace and trust in his quiet face, when all had gone. And into the room where she was alone with him there came the quiet message that all was well. And the hearts of people were So warm. The doctor himself, who had seen so many die one would have thought he would have become callous, was so unaffectedly kind. Even people one had thought were enemies, or not enemies but just careless of one, showed a warmth, an understanding.

And she had thought it impossible for her ever to be on the world alone; but somewhence strength had come to her, and poise, and all the fears she had when Mr. Valance, her husband, was alive, were dead now, she a widow. Lonely and down in grief at times, but afraid, never!

And she thought to herself, with a queer little smile, of the times when in the dark of the night, by the eerie Long Island waters, she had gone out, crying in a little misery, praying, wishing that Mr. Valance, her husband, would appear to her, that she might once more hear the beloved voice, sense the big dignity, perhaps feel the kindly hand upon her shoulder. But she waited in vain. Nothing came to her cries, her prayers, her wishes. But when she came in again, she felt she had emptied her heart of longing and loneliness, and all the familiar furnishings of her rooms spoke to her tactfully and friendly.

young days. But on second thoughts she discovered they were just the same. Life was a constant, as Mr. Valance, her husband, used to say of things. Oftentimes while she sat in a corner and heard young people talk, she was amused, for they seemed to think she knew nothing of modern life. And life could not be modern or ancient. Life was a constant, as Mr. Valance, her husband, used to say. They had only manufactured new terms, discovered new angles. She smiled as she thought of their talks of psychoanalysis; of how one was very complex; and how one must get rid of obsessions by discovering them and talking about them to a specialist. One did the same in her day. One called the obsessions troubles, and on one's knees one poured one's heart out to God. And their talk of psychic things, why, when she was a grown woman, didn't they have the queer Eddys in Vermont, and that strange Russian woman, Madame Blavatsky, and Home, the medium, who floated through a window, feet first. And she was sure that when she was young there were just as intricate card games as bridge. And their talk of Socialism and man's rights! Did they forget that Lincoln freed the slaves? Ah, the young!

She remembered a man saying, an old man, that what was wrong with the new generation was this: they left nothing to God. They wanted to do everything their own way. Fifty years ago, he said, every one was cognizant of God.

But were they, pondered the old lady. Yes, they went to church. But didn't they go just because one went, as nowadays one goes to the movies? A habit. And did the rounded sentences of the ministers mean anything to the young? No. And the hymns, they were just melodies. One sang them, as young boys sang college songs. It was only when one was grown, man or woman tall, and the great wolves of the world harried one, harried until one could sense their white teeth, their red slavering mouths, and there was a blank wall and no escape-it was only

She had often thought to herself, sitting there, as an old person might, that things did not seem as well as they were in her

rarely afterward did one ever speak of it. It seemed like a strange secret order, being initiated to God. She was sure that it was like that to-day, as it was fifty

years ago, as it must ever have been, as it must ever be.

Looking up from her sewing an instant she saw Berenice coming toward the house. It must be later than she thought. It must be lunch-time. They must make Barry, poor boy, stop now. Brain-work was so fatiguing and he shouldn't overdo it.

She paused for a breath, watching the brown head, the apple-green dress. She knew the girl's secret, though Berenice had never said anything, hinted at all about a baby. But the little exalted look in the eyes

"I must say a prayer to-night," thought the old lady.

He got up from the desk. No! it was no use. Nothing would come to-day. Another fruitless morning. If he could only find the trick those fellows had!

Yes, but they all had something to write about, and he had nothing: this wretched urban setting, this calm uninteresting Sound. And he knew nobody. There was no encouragement, no inspiration. His mother, dear old lady, she knew nothing, could tell him nothing. And his wife-she was a dear girl, and he loved her, but Oh, there was nothing to write about; no drama; no people of drama.

NEWSPAPER office is the last place in the world where one would expect to see a ghost, except, perhaps, the traditional spectre that walks on payday. But the ghost in this narrative had nothing to do with salaries, and it came into the Torch office over the wire during the busiest part of the night, a little before the first edition was going to press.

When an A. P. flash, announcing that a cloudburst had broken the dam two miles above Largen and wiped out the town, reached the Torch late one April afternoon in 1921, the first thing Howard Henry, the managing editor, did was to locate the town on the map, the second was to look up trains for Barlow, the nearest junction point, and the third was to pry Bill O'Brien loose from his typewriter and send him in a taxi to the ferry to catch the 6.30 on the D. L. & W.

No one knew better than Henry that O'Brien would almost certainly not arrive in Largen until some time the next day,

but there was a gambler's chance that he might make it by midnight and, in any case, he would be there in good time for the second-day story. Largen was one hundred and fifty miles away, and the branch line from Barlow, according to a later despatch, was out of commission and would remain so until three bridges had been repaired. The state road between Barlow and Largen, which also followed the narrow valley of the creek, was likewise impassable, and the only way into the town was by a fifty-mile détour over the hills. There was one consolation: Largen was still in touch with the outside world by wire.

Henry next sought out Holden, the telegraph editor.

"Have we a correspondent at Largen?" he asked.

"Yes; R. F. Johnson. I have just wired him."

"I don't remember him. Did he ever send us a query?"

"Not in my time. Fat chance we have of getting anything from him to-night. You remember the bird we telegraphed to at the time of the Austin flood who