nt you to express any opinion on the subject. I
should not respect you if you said your mother could do wrong, and I do
not wish to hear you say she did right. I only want you to understand
why I refuse to go to Hatton Hall any more."

"Do not say that, Jane. I am sure mother was conscious of no feeling but
a desire to do good."

"I do not like her way of doing good. I will not voluntarily go to
receive it. Would you do so, John?"

"She is my mother. A few words could not drive us apart. She may come to
you, you may go to her. As to that, nothing is certain."

"Except that your words are most uncertain and uncomforting, John."

Then John rose and went to her side and whispered those little words,
those simple words, those apparently meaningless, disconnected words
which children and women love and understand so well. And she wept a
little and then smiled, and the wretched story was buried in love and
pity--and perhaps the poor soul knew it!

"You see, Jane, my dear one, the Unknown fulfills what we never dare to
expect, so we will leave the door wide open for Faith and Hope." And as
John said these words, he had a sudden clear remembrance of the empty
loom and the fair little woman he had so often seen at work there. Then
a prayer leaped from his heart to the Everlasting Mercy, a prayer we too
seldom use, "Father, forgive, they know not what they do."

For a moment or two they sat hand in hand and were silent. Then Jane,
who was visibly suffering, from headache, went to her room, and John
took a pencil and began to make figures and notes in his pocketbook. His
face and manner was quiet and thoughtful. He had consented to his trial
outwardly; inwardly he knew it to be overcome. And to suffer, to be
wronged and unhappy, yet not to cease being loving and pleasant, implies
a very powerful, Christ-like disposition.

He knew well very hard days were before his people, and he was now
endeavoring by every means in his power to provide alleviations for the
great tragedy he saw approaching. All other things seemed less urgent,
and a letter from Harry full of small worries about pictures and
bric-a-brac was almost an irritation. But he answered it in brotherly
fashion and laid the responsibility so kindly on Harry himself that the
careless young fellow was proudly encouraged and uplifted.

In the meantime the small cloud in the far west was casting deeper
shadows of forthcoming events, but in the lovely springtime they we