Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/146

128 away in a basket. She went with wonderful lightness for her weight, to the inner door and looked in. Mary was in bed but not asleep. Her eyes glinted lazily at Thora, then closed. Thora tiptoed back and took up her violin, taking it out on the verandah. Lightly, lovingly, she played a folk song of her own land, a simple lullaby. One could hear the crooning mother, see the softly rocking cradle, the drowsy, drowsy babe. She had not played it thus since Mary had lain, a motherless youngster, uncomforted and lonely, upon the same four-poster—and Thora had come to be mother and companion, elder sister and handmaiden.

Twice she played the air, the second time so gently it was but a whispered melody, and then she went into the house, nodded to herself at Mary's even breathing, twined her mass of hair in two great braids and prepared for bed. At the last moment before she blew out the lamp she hesitated and then carefully closed the outer door, shooting two bolts into their sockets. Thora liked the out-of-doors but to her practical side a house was a house, therefore to be closed at nightfall. A moment later the candle was extinguished and the mountain bowl lay dark and still, steeped in flower fragrance and the scent of standing hay.

At three in the morning—the quiet hour of the night—a waning quarter of a moon topped the eastern crags and diluted the shadows, giving vague form to the trees, enlivening the lake. A coyote barked sharply at the head of the gorge that led to the tunnel and the stout gate.