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with a smile. "Poor Sally," she added, "'tis a marvelous cruel way to treat ye! But ye can rest the morrow!" A quick, painful sigh escaped her. "Rest—to-morrow!" she repeated, evidently thinking of the agony of sorrow which should be hers when the first shock of parting should be ended and she had time for rest—or grief!

For a little while, then, silence ensued in the big kitchen—the strange silence preceding the dawn, when the ticking of the clock, the sound of the fire can be so thunderously loud. At last Master Williams stirred, sighed, awoke, to look in profound amazement at his wife sitting there stirring together a cake in the middle of the night. Then remembrance rushed upon him, and he winced, sighed again, got heavily to his feet.

"Do'ee go to bed for a while, Nat," urged his wife.

Sally, watching her, thought again how magnificent she was in her unselfish devotion, in her standing aside and letting her husband decide for himself this problem which had come upon them. How few women would do the same under similar circumstances, how few could resist pleading their own desires!

The girl, glancing at her ever and anon, as Master Williams yielded to his wife's pleading and dragged himself off to bed, was overwhelmed by remorse as she thought of her unjust suspicions