The minister's wife went toward the house, with a shadow on her face.
She shared with her husband his people's sorrows. She knew even better
than he the life-history of every family in the congregation. Macdonald
Dubh had long been classed among the wild and careless in the community,
and it weighed upon her heart that his life might be in danger.

"I shall see him to-morrow," she said to herself.

For a few moments she stood on the doorstep looking at the glow in the
sky over the dark forest, which on the west side came quite up to the
house and barn.

"Look, Hughie, at the beautiful tints in the clouds, and see the dark
shadows pointing out toward us from the bush." Hughie glanced a moment.

"Mamma," he said, "I am just dead for supper."

"Oh, not quite, I hope, Hughie. But look, I want you to notice those
clouds and the sky behind them. How lovely! Oh, how wonderful!"

Her enthusiasm caught the boy, and for a few moment she forgot even his
hunger, and holding his mother's hand, gazed up at the western sky. It
was a picture of rare beauty that lay stretched out from the manse back
door. Close to the barn came the pasture-field dotted with huge stumps,
then the brule where the trees lay fallen across one another, over
which the fire had run, and then the solid wall of forest here and there
overtopped by the lofty crest of a white pine. Into the forest in the
west the sun was descending in gorgeous robes of glory. The treetops
caught the yellow light, and gleamed like the golden spires of some