"You are consecrated," she added, in a
low voice, laying her hand on his head.
"Amen," said James, in a reverential tone. He felt that she was at that
moment--as she often was--silently speaking to One invisible of and for
him, and the sense of it stole over him like a benediction. There was a
pause of tender silence for many minutes.
"Well, I must not keep you up any longer, mother dear--it's time you were
resting. Good-night." And with a long embrace and kiss they separated. He
had yet fifteen miles to walk to reach the midnight stage that was to
convey him to Salem.
As he was starting from the house with his bundle in his hand, the sound
of a gay laugh came through the distant shrubbery. It was Diana and Bill
returning from the husking. Hastily he concealed himself behind a clump
of old lilac bushes till they emerged into the moonlight and passed into
the house. Diana was in one of those paroxysms of young girl frolic which
are the effervescence of young, healthy blood, as natural as the
gyrations of a bobolink on a clover head. James was thinking of dark
nights and stormy seas, years of exile, mother's sorrows, home perhaps
never to be seen more, and the laugh jarred on him like a terrible
discord.
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