"But you must tell me what I am to do." She answered: "You are simply to go on with your life--just as if no Elbow Rock had ever disturbed you; just as the river goes on--to the end." She left him, then, to think out his problem alone; for the teacher of so many years' experience was too wise not to know when a lesson was finished.
But when the end of the day was come, they again sat together on the porch and watched the miracle of the sunset hour.

And no word was spoken by them, now, of life and its problems and its meanings.

As one listens to the song of a bird without thought of musical notes or terms; as one senses the fragrance of a flower without thought of the chemistry of perfume; as one feels the presence of spring in the air without thought of the day of the week, so they were conscious of the beauty, the glory, and the peace of the evening.
Only when the soft darkness of the night lay over the land, and river and mountain and starry sky were veiled in dreamy mystery, did Auntie Sue speak: "Oh, it is so good to have some one to share it with,--some one who understands.

I am very lonely, sometimes, Brian.

I wonder if you know ?" "Yes, Auntie Sue, I know, for I have been lonely, too." And so the old gentlewoman, whose lifework was so nearly finished, and the man in the flush of his manhood years, whose life had been so nearly wrecked, were drawn very close by a something that came to them out of the beauty and the mystery of that hour.
The next day, Brian told Auntie Sue that he would leave on the morrow.
"Leave ?" she echoed in dismay.