e to see how Marlene pines and falls away," said his
mother. "If the slightest causes agitate her so, she will be soon worn
out. If you would only talk to her, and tell her not to make herself so
miserable about a misfortune that cannot be repaired."

"I am afraid it would be useless;" returned the vicar. "If her
education, her father's and mother's tenderness, and her daily
intercourse with ourselves, have not spoken to her heart, no human
words can do so. If she had learned to submit herself to the will of
God, she would bear a dispensation that has left her so much to be
thankful for, with gratitude, and not with murmurings."

"He has taken much away from her!"

"He has, but not all--not for ever, at least. Now she seems to have
lost the faculty of loving; of holding all things as nothing, compared
to the love of God and of His creatures. And this faculty only returns
to us when we return to God. As she now is, she does not wish to return
to Him--her grievances and her discontent are still too dear to her;
but the tone of her mind is too healthy to harbour these sad companions
long. Sometime, when her heart is feeling most forlorn, God will take
possession of it again, and love and charity will resume their former
places, and then there will be light within her, even though it be dark
before her eyes."

"God grant it! yet the thought of her future life distresses me."

"She is safe if she does nothing to lose herself. And even if all those
who now love and cherish her should be taken from her, charity never
dies. And if she take heed to the guiding of the Lord, and the ways it
pleaseth Him to lead her, she may yet learn to bless the blindness,
that from her infancy has separated her from the shadow, and given her
the reality and truth."

Clement interrupted their discourse. "You cannot think how lovely it is
to-night!" he cried from the threshold where he stood. "I would gladly
give one eye if I could give it to Marlene, that she might see the
splendour of the stars. I hope the noise of the waterfall may not
prevent her sleeping. I can never forgive myself for having left her to
sit out there in the cold."

"Dear boy, speak lower," said his mother; "she is asleep close by. The
best thing you can do, I think, would be to go to sleep yourself." And
the boy whispered his good-night.

When his mother went to Marlene's room, she found her quiet and
apparently asleep--that troubled look had given place to an expre