omen, has given me His own loving
pity,--in little human grains, it is true, but they come from "the
shining shore." "Miss Axtell does want me," I thought; "she is right,--I
am gladness to her."

"Will you go?" came from the invalid.

"A woman, loving thus, never comes alone into a friend's heart,"
something said; "you must receive her shadow"; and I looked at the
person who had said, "Will you go?"

There are various words used in the dictionary of life, descriptive
of men such as him now before me. They mostly are formed in syllables
numbering four and five, which all integrate in the one word
_irresistible_: how pitifully I abhor that word!--every letter has a
serpent-coil in it. "Love thy neighbor even as thyself." It is good that
these words came just here to wall themselves before the torrent that
might not have been stayed until I had laid the mountain of my thought
upon the sycophantic syllabication that the world loves to "lip" unto
the world,--the false world, that, blinded, blinds to blinder blindness
those that fain would behold. There is a crying out in the earth for
a place of torment; there are sins for which we want what God hath
prepared for the wicked.

"Are you going?"--and this time there was plaintive moaning in the
accents.

"You must take him in, too," my spirit whispered; and I acted the "I
will" that formed in the mental court where my soul sat enthroned,--my
own judge.

"Oh, no, I am not going away," I said; "I am come to stay with you,
until some one else comes."

A certain resignment of opposition seemed to be effected. I knew it
would be so,--it is in all such natures,--and he seemed intent upon
making atonement for his imaginary wrong, since I would stay.

"Mary, I didn't mean to kill you," he said; "I wouldn't have destroyed
your young life; oh! I wouldn't;--but I did! I did!"

"You make some strange mistake; you ought not to talk," I urged,
surprised at this second time being called Mary.

"Yes, I guess 'twas a mistake,--you're right, all a mistake,--I didn't
mean to kill you; but I did _him_, though. Oh! I wanted to destroy
him,--_he hadn't any pity, he wouldn't yield_. But it's _you_, Mary,
_you_ oughtn't to hear me say such things of _him_."

"I am not Mary, I am Miss Percival; and you may tell me."

"I beg pardon, I had no right to call you Mary; but it is there, now, on
your tomb-stone in the old church-yard,--Mary Percival,--there isn't any
Miss there. Do they call y