the other two by many hundreds of miles. That is the bitterness of livingto be far away from our loved ones. It may seem strange to you, but those who are dead feel nearer to me than any of the others, excepting Henry," and her beautiful eyes went to the window which showed us the hammock in which her invalid brother lay.

"I don't mourn my dead now," she continued, after a brief pause. "I miss them all, especially Nell, but the bitter grief that once weighed down my heart is gone. How much happier they are than those who remain! When I think of what Henry has suffered, and still must suffer, of Lettie's sorrow-stricken home and of my own trouble, I am glad they are at rest. Often, when the cares of earth press me down, I go to their graves for consolation."

Here she broke off and, returning to her former subject, talked about the books, until a question brought her back to personalities again.

an

"I think I must have been the torment of my father's life," she said. "He was a deep scholar, a great reader, and I never knew any one with his profound respect for books. He had gained a high place in knowledge, but by the most indefatigable study. His was not one of those quick minds that grasp and comprehend things without effort, but one that works slowly and painfully. So it must have been strange to him to see a girl of eighteen coming over the ground by strides where he had traveled by such careful steps. Sometimes when he would lay down his book, I would pick it up, and after a while would begin to jot down notes on the paper which he always kept for that purpose. Dear father! I can see the expression on his face now as he read them.

"Oh, yes, I used to write. I don't know how it happened that I should have thought of such a thing, for in those days women were expected to be

learned for the home alone, not for the wider circle of magazine readers. But I wrote verses, essays and stories, and many of them were published. I well remember my joy over seeing them in print and my great desire to show them to my father, yet, fearing to offend him, I refrained from doing so. I planned a great career for myself. The field was not so crowded then, and as I had some natural talent to aid me, I felt confident of success. About that time there came a great financial crash and, like many others, father lost all his money. Not many years before, the war had crippled our fortune, and this destroyed it forever. My father did not long survive, and when he died he left us helpless and almost penniless.

"Until then my life had flowed in a peaceful channel, but after that it entered into the dark and hard places. The estate was involved seriously; the boys knew comparatively nothing of managing it, and so we did what I have since regretted-parcelled it out to tenants, while they started to earn a fortune for themselves as bookkeepers and lawyers. Three of the boys were older than I, and the youngest brother, Charles, was studying for the ministry. His vocation must not be interfered with, we determined, but there were the two girls to be educated. Nell was even then a musician of no mean ability, and a few more years would render her proficient and place her in a position to gain a good livelihood. It was then my knowledge proved a useful friend. I applied for and taught the district school for a number of years, thereby educating Nell and Lettie, besides providing many a little necessary for the home.

"My own plans had been rudely broken in upon, but I set them aside until the present difficulties were surmounted, thinking with youthful optimism that the old time of plenty and leisure would be restored, when I should live out my golden dream. What trust

the young heart has in the future! Nearing now my half a century of life, I tremble at the thought of what the future may still hold for me and I cannot realize that it was really I who, on the threshold of time, looked forward to the years with such confidence and longing.

"True, after a while, there came a summertime of happiness. The love that perfects woman's life was mine. We were happy together once more. The girls and Charles were home for their vacation, the boys, who had positions in the town, were with us in the evening, and, to complete our joy, Joseph brought to us his young wife to love and cherish for his sake."

She showed me the portrait of her brother's wife, and a sadness crept over me as I looked at the lovely, childish face, the pure, limpid eyes, gazing out so confidingly on the future opening like a vista before her.

"You do not think it strange that in a short time we grew to love her as if she were our own sister? She wound herself so completely around our hearts that we would gladly have given our lives for her. But all that love and tenderness could not keep the beautiful soul in its fragile dwelling-place. When she died, it seemed that the rarest part of our happiness was buried with her. Her death was the beginning of a series of other troubles. The next one to leave us was our mother. Ah! my

dear, after our brief spell of happiness there came a direful visitation. In one short month we saw the trappings of death twice in our home, and the flowers were scarcely wilted on Virgie's grave when mother's was made beside it. Then separation followed for those. who remained. Joseph, whose heart was broken by his double loss, went to Mobile, and I was alone with Lettie and Henry, whose delicate constitution had been ruined by his close application to work. I put from me all thought

of my own happiness, for the present, and my betrothed was noble and generous. I have heard of men so selfish as to demand that their sweethearts should disregard the most sacred of duties for them; but he aided me in my efforts to make smooth the paths of my child-sister and invalid brother.

"Oh! those were dreary days! Henry was in the prime of manhood, full of ambition, eager for the pleasures of life, and he could not reconcile himself to his lot. Oh! the wrestling with that soul, the striving to bring it into perfect harmony with God's dispensation, the fighting against the power of

darkness that threatened to overwhelm it! But," the beautiful eyes kindling with a holy light, "my prayers and pleadings and God's great grace conquered, and when he took my hand one morning, and said to me, 'Sister, I am resigned, and you made me so,' I knew that I had not lived in vain. My dear, it was that knowledge, and the thought that there was yet work for me, that carried me through the next terrible calamity, which for a while seemed to sweep away from me everything that had sustained me under other trials."

She passed a slim, blue-veined hand before her eyes and for a moment said nothing, and I knew that she referred to the time when Dr. Spellman, her betrothed lover, in a heat of passion caused by hearing a word slightingly spoken of her, struck the speaker a blow-for which blow he paid the next morning with his life on the duelling-field. I had heard this tragic part of her story from others, and that the shock of her lover's death had turned the brown hair white and impaired forever the hitherto splendid health.

"It was the heaviest cross of all," she said, looking at me with eyes that told of a soul that once had stood on the edge of despair, "not so much his death as the knowledge that I had caused it. Looking back from where I stand to

day, I wonder how my young heart endured it. I could not, I now realize, if I had not had Henry. You know those lines of Longfellow :

"We see but dimly through the mists and

vapors

Amid these carthly damps,

What seem to us sad, funeral tapers,

May be Heaven's distant lamps.' "Deep in my heart, I had thought at first that it was hard that Henry should be cut down in the vigor of manhood; but when I was thus bereft, I knew that his invalidism was for me indeed one of Heaven's distant lamps."

The mist came into her dark eyes as they sought, with the solicitous affection of a mother, the occupant of the hammock. She paused, then contin

ued in her calm voice:

I

"But, though happiness and I had parted company, there was work to be done. I had to be both mother and father to the younger children; even the boys, though older than I, still looked to me for advice and help. The management of the estate devolved entirely on me, and it was no sinecure. The tenants were, for the most part, of an inferior class, who scrupled not at the basest actions to gain a slight advantage. tried for years to improve them, but, with a few exceptions, failed. Then death came back, and back, and took first, Charles, in the first year of his ministry, then John, and lastly, Nell. If I had a favorite it was Nell. She had been more my companion in childhood and youth, and she was one of those sunny natures that always find the bright side of things. Through all our trouble she was cheerful, although I knew she, too, was suffering. But her pain was SO great that, fondly as I loved her, I thanked God when she was dead. there anything harder than this, I wonder to kneel for hours by the bedside of one whose life is far dearer to you than your own, begging God to send her His release!"

Is

She again became silent. The long, slim fingers drawing the needle through the glove she was mending, trembled slightly, and I knew that the downcast eyes saw not the work before them but the anguished face of the dying sister.

It

"Aren't our hearts tough things?" she asked, looking up. "Thinking of the sorrows of others, we wonder how they can endure them; and yet when our time comes we do not succumb, but eat and sleep and work as before. seems impossible to us at first that we shall ever know happiness again, but scattered along our way are many joys, if we will accept them. Sorrow can make us selfish, if we permit it. It comes to us disguised as an enemy, but we may transform it into a holy friend. Do you remember what Madame de Stael says? What is it to be resigned? It is to put God between ourselves and our troubles.' In those few words she has expressed all. And whoever meditates on the example given us by the Man of Sorrows," she continued, lifting her eyes to the crucifix on the mantlepiece, "must grow resigned patiently to follow in His steps."

After some further conversation, she referred to her original idea of what her work should be.

"Although I have been waiting many years, the time to follow what I once fondly dreamed was my calling has not arrived. There are still duties which I may not neglect, and what spare time I have I give to Henry."

The summer afternoon was waning as I rose.

"Come and see Henry," she said, leading the way over the green yard to the hammock, swung low between two old locust trees.

"Please don't rise," I said, noting his feeble effort.

"You see how illness and years change us!" he said, taking my hand, a smile so like his sister's-lighting up his face. "I could once spring out of

this as easily as the lambs yonder spring over that brook; but now I must ask you to pardon me for not rising. I am glad you have come to see us. I trust you will come often. Sister sees few now from the outside world. Her life has been spent in waiting on a sick old brother who can make her no return whatever."

She was standing near his head, and while he was speaking one delicate hand was smoothing back the clustering locks from his high forehead, her eyes and tender smile resting on his face.

"Yes, your love," she said, gently, and then his thin hand sought hers.

"I shall walk with you as far as the stone wall," she said, as I was leaving. A great black dog left his place by his master, and coming to her side, looked into her face with affection in his brown eyes.

"Jet and I are great friends," she said, stooping to caress his big head. "He constitutes himself my body-guard when I go over the farm."

The path led us down the lawn, in and out among the great trees. The low stone wall that separated the lawn from the pasture-land was almost covered with dark-green moss and vines. There was a pretty knoll to the left crowned by an ancient oak, while clustering about its feet like children around a hoary-headed sire were a number of lithe saplings. The ground was a mass of white violets.

"This was my favorite nook in what I now call my sentimental days," she said, gathering some of the pale blossoms for me. "Here none would intrude, and what an amount of time I used to spend on its ornamentation! I could not grow flowers in beds because of the tree, but I had them in swinging baskets of every size and device, until a stranger would be forgiven for thinking that he had chanced upon a modern Babylonian flower-garden. But I rarely come here now. Memories cluster too thickly around it, memories of my brief season of hope and happiness."

When I reached the brow of the hill, I paused. The summer sun, attended by a train of fleecy little clouds, had passed through the western gate, and the land was steeped in the glory of his departure. I looked back at the old house nestling among the trees. I could see the moss-covered roof and ivy-clad gable, the rich red roses swaying in the evening breeze. Its mistress was standing by the hammock, her hand resting on the rope. Before her was the dog, his huge form defined against her gray dress. In imagination I saw the smile. that was illuminating her high-bred face, and the tender light of the great dark eyes as they rested on her brother. As I recalled some of the words she had spoken to me that afternoon, I remembered the lesson I had been taught by the brook in the wood, and it answered all my questioning.