ght it all over, many a time. I've had
reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about
the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a
discipline, nowadays, than anything else!"

It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very
birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are
mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of
right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd,
plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of
half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities,
and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson
went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into
the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity,
rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and
intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy.

She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in
the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the
open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God
bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a
balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy,
lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort
could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It
bore her toward the eternal solace there.

Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much
as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before
her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life
about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its
coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a
wail. There was something for each to do.

Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed.
In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers,
just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted
ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own
actual disability.

But it was not a sick room--one felt that--this little limited bound in
which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was
brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere.
Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "t