schievous laugh.

"A mutual admiration society," said Sadie, in her most mocking tone.
"Did you and Dr. Douglass have a private rehearsal? You interrupted
him in a similar rhapsody over your perfections."

Instead of seeming annoyed, Dr. Van Anden's face glowed with pleasure.

"Did he explain to you our misunderstanding?" he asked, eagerly. "That
was very noble in him."

"Of _course_. He is the soul of nobility--a villain yesterday and
a saint to-day. I don't understand such marvelously rapid changes,
Doctor."

"I know you don't," the Doctor answered quietly. "Although you have
exaggerated both terms, yet there is a great and marvelous change,
which must be experienced to be understood. Will you never seek it for
yourself, Sadie?"

"I presume I never shall, as I very much doubt the existence of any
such phenomenon."

The Doctor appeared neither shocked nor surprised, but favored her
with a cool and quiet reply:

"Oh, no, you don't doubt it in the least. Don't try to make yourself
out that foolish and unreasonable creature--an unbeliever in what is
as clear to a thinking mind as is the sun at noonday. You and I have
no need to enter into an argument concerning this matter. You have
seen some unwise and inconsistent acts in many who are called by the
name of Christian. You imagine that they have staggered your belief
in the verity of the thing itself. Yet it is not so. You had a dear
father who lived and died in the faith, and you no more doubt the fact
that he is in heaven to-day, brought there by the power of the Savior
in whom he trusted, than you doubt your own existence at this moment."

Sadie sat silenced and grave; she was very rarely either, perhaps. Dr.
Van Anden was the one person who could have thus subdued her, but
in her inmost heart she felt his words to be true; that dear, _dear_
father, whose weary suffering life had been one long evidence to the
truth of the religion which he professed--yes, it was so, she no more
doubted that he was at this moment in that blessed heaven toward which
his hopes had so constantly tended, than she doubted the shining of
that day's sun--so he, being dead, yet spoke to her. Besides, her keen
judgment had, of late, settled back upon the belief that Dr. Van Anden
lived a life that would bear watching--a true, earnest, manly life;
also, that he was a man not likely to be deceived. So, sitting back
there in the carriage, and appearing to look at nothing, and be
interes