Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs.Ray sat in her chair close by.

How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, "God bless you!" how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly! The old spinning-wheel--here it was, and Rotha's right hand still rested upon it.

Ah! the wheel--surely _that_ was, the sign she wanted.
She would sit and spin--yes, she could spin, too, though it was long since she had done so--she would sit in his mother's chair--the one his mother used to sit in when she spun--and perhaps he would understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother's place if he wished her so to do.
Quick, let it be done at once.

He usually came up to the house at this time of the morning.
She looked at the clock.

He would be here soon, she thought; he might be coming now.
* * * * * And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the moment.