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out on the altar of hope, leaving there nothing but a few grey, crumbling ashes. She was not one of those who can turn themselves inside out like the zoophytes and sea-anemones on the rocks, and go on living just as comfortably as ever after the operation. She was not what is commonly called "transparent," lighted up ready to be looked through, admired or pitied by passers-by, as the case might be. Upon all her past life there hung the veil of a great silence, never lifted for any one; only showing by occasional throbbings that something lived and moved beneath it still. And from this long-practised quietness, people had learned to think that she was very easy and untroubled, and so brought her all their little cares and uneasiness to be sympathised with; wondering sometimes how it was that she was so skilled to soothe, so gentle to bind up the fretting wound, so wise to look upward and gather strength for coming need. They forgot how

"Eyes that have wept so much see clear."

Only sometimes, as now with Maud, she thought

more freely, and unlocked the springs of feeling, that comfort might flow from them to other hearts; not telling even Maud, though, whence those springs had their source. She went on, still looking out over the Marbrook hills, where the twilight was beginning to creep up.

"We should hardly call that death which only takes from us the bodily presence of our friends, and leaves the heart of them with us still, for comfort and companionship. We have but to think of them, and they are here; we have but to drop this little outer husk of words and looks and daily week-day cares, entering the still world of thought, and they are with us. After a while, we have but to die, and we shall be with them. Is this very much to murmur about? Is there any sting in this that we grieve over it so? Only a little while to walk alone; only a little while to miss the hand-clasp, the kind, pleasant voice, and all will be given back to us again, never to depart any more, never any more at all. It is that other death, Maud, that death in life, which it is so hard to bear; that death which takes from us

those who were our all in all, and gives them, not into the keeping of a tender and loving Father, to be treasured safely for us until we can come to them, not into heaven and rest and peace, but to sin and to recklessness. That death which strikes them apart from us, and throws them back into a world full of wickedness, where no tender thought of ours can reach them, from which no longing of ours can bring them back; and there is nothing left for us but to remember them with tears. You will never feel this, Maud. There are deeps of suffering in the world into which you have never looked. And thinking of them sometimes, it seems to me as if there were mysteries, too, which even heaven itself will never solve."

Quick descent from these elevated spheres of thought. The tramping of sublunary shoes was heard in the little entrance hall, such tramping, quick and busy, as was never heard save from the feet of Miss Gabbatis. And presently the straw bonnet of that brisk little spinster made its appearance within the door of the wainscoted room, followed, after a suitable interval, by the

whole of her outer woman, attired in the customary brown alpaca dress, and bearing the peripatetic umbrella, which had been officiating as a walking-stick along the Braeton road.

"Astonished to see me now, aren't you, Miss Nunly?" said she, as she looked about for a convenient corner for her umbrella, and then proceeded to deposit herself in a rocking chair, "and on the October race night, too, of all others, and me an unprotected female. But really I'll never put myself in the way of such an experience again, for what with drunken people, and young men going about with canes and cigars,-I don't care for a little bit of Havanna smoke on a cold winter night, in fact, I've sometimes thought I should like to try it personally, but to be fumigated with it on a misty autumn evening is another thing altogether, -and what with men going about with fruit carts and ginger-beer trays and hot pies, and women with destitute families arranged in rows across the street, and little beggars in white pinafores singing Willie, we have missed you!' as if Willie hadn't been told that interesting fact often enough to have become

properly aware of it before now,-I really did think, Miss Nunly, that I should never have got here at all. And, indeed, if it hadn't been for my umbrella, I should have had to give it up; but you see I poked it well forward, and it has a good sharp point, so the people made way for me a little, and here I am. But, deary me, Miss Nunly, these races are awful times.”

Miss Nunly possessed the most rare and unselfish quality of adapting herself to the individual requirements of every guest who entered her doors, and was always ready to leave her own track of thought for one which might be more congenial with the moods of her friends. So she turned away from the window, and placed Miss Gabbatis a seat by the fire, and prepared to enter into conversation with her.

"Awful times, Miss Nunly, these races, specially when it rains and the roads get so muddy. And, if you'll excuse me, I'll just slip my shoes off, and put my feet on the fender. I'm sure I've been in purgatory, if there is such a place, ever since two o'clock this afternoon, with these canoes that the Braeton cobbler made me. It's

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