Sampson she may bring my gruel."

CHAPTER XXXII.

GLORY McWHIRK'S INSPIRATION.

"No bird am I to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.
Good nests and berries red are Nature's
To give away to better creatures,--
And yet my days go on, go on."
MRS. BROWNING.

Mr. and Mrs. Gartney arrived on Thursday.

Two weeks and three days they had been absent; and in that time how the
busy sprites of change and circumstance had been at work! As if the
scattered straws of events, that, stretched out in slender windrows,
might have reached across a field of years, had been raked together, and
rolled over--crowded close, and heaped, portentous, into these eighteen
days!

Letters had told them something; of the burned mill, and Faith's fearful
danger and escape; of Aunt Henderson's continued illness, and its
present serious aspect; and with this last intelligence, which met them
in New York but two days since, Mrs. Gartney found her daughter's
agitated note of pained avowal, that she "had come, through all this, to
know herself better, and to feel sure that this marriage ought not to
be"; that, in short, all was at length over between her and Paul
Rushleigh.

It was a meeting full of thought--where much waited for speech that
letters could neither have conveyed nor satisfied--when Faith and her
father and mother exchanged the kiss of love and welcome, once more, in
the little home at Cross Corners.

It was well that Mis' Battis had made waffles, and spread a tempting
summer tea with these and her nice, white bread, and fruits and creams;
and wished, with such faint impatience as her huge calm was capable of,
that "they would jest set right down, while things was good and hot";
and that Hendie was full of his wonderful adventures by boat and train,
and through the wilds; so that these first hours were gotten over, and
all a little used to the old feeling of being together again, before
there was opportunity for touching upon deeper subjects.

It came at length--the long evening talk, after Hendie was in bed, and
Mr. Gartney had been over to the old house, and seen his aunt, and had
come back, to find wife and daughter sitting in the dim light beside the
open door, drawn close in love and confidence, and so glad and thankful
to have each other back once more!

First--Aunt Faith; and what was to be done--what might be hoped--what
must be feared--for her. Then, the terrible story of th