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defender of his kindred; at Kirk, for whom they had kept the joy of living alight; at the Maestro, the beautiful spirit of the place; at her mother, given back to them at last. Mrs. Sturgis looked wonderingly at her children in the firelight, but most of all at Kirk, whose face was lighted, as he leaned beside the Maestro, with a radiance she had never before seen there.

And without, the silver shape of a waning moon climbed between the black, sighing boughs of the laden orchard, and stood above the broad, gray roof of Applegate Farm.