the shadows, bearing themselves as queens though they wore the dress of the shepherdess."
"I'm almost tempted to kiss you for that, as you once took advantage of me!" said Marion with enthusiasm.
The moon had risen and a whippoorwill was chanting his weird song on the lawn as Ben left them leaning on the gate.
It was past midnight before they finished the last touches in restoring their nest to its old homelike appearance and sat down happy and tired in the room in which Marion was born, brooding and dreaming and talking over the future.
The mother was hanging on the words of her daughter, all the baffled love of the dead poet husband, her griefs and poverty consumed in the glowing joy of new hopes. Her love for this child was now a triumphant passion, which had melted her own being into the object of worship, until the soul of the daughter was superimposed on the mother's as the magnetised by the magnetiser.
"And you'll never keep a secret from me, dear?" she asked of Marion.
"Never."
"You'll tell me all your love-affairs?" she asked, softly, as she drew the shining blonde head down on her shoulders.
"Faithfully."
"You know I've been afraid sometimes you were keeping something back from me, deep down in your heart—and I'm jealous. You didn't refuse Henry Grier because you loved Ben Cameron—now, did you?"
