anded Amy; "you've got something else to do."

And from that day we were in the hands of Amy, and had nothing else to
do but praise the Lord for His goodness.

Barbara also found out (from Washburn, I expect), though she said
nothing, but came often. Old Hasluck would have come himself, I am
sure, had he thought he would be welcome. As it was, he always sent
kind messages and presents of fruit and flowers by Barbara, and always
welcomed me most heartily whenever she allowed me to see her home.

She brought, as ever, sunshine with her, making all trouble seem far off
and shadowy. My mother tended to the fire of love, but Barbara lit the
cheerful lamp of laughter.

And with the lessening days my father seemed to grow younger, life lying
lighter on him.

One summer's night he and I were walking with Barbara to Poplar station,
for sometimes, when he was not looking tired, she would order him to
fetch his hat and stick, explaining to him with a caress, "I like them
tall and slight and full grown. The young ones, they don't know how to
flirt! We will take the boy with us as gooseberry;" and he, pretending
to be anxious that my mother did not see, would kiss her hand, and slip
out quietly with her arm linked under his. It was admirable the way he
would enter into the spirit of the thing.

The last cloud faded from before the moon as we turned the corner, and
even the East India Dock Road lay restful in front of us.

"I have always regarded myself," said my father, "as a failure in life,
and it has troubled me." I felt him pulled the slightest little bit
away from me, as though Barbara, who held his other arm, had drawn him
towards her with a swift pressure. "But do you know the idea that has
come to me within the last few months? That on the whole I have been
successful. I am like a man," continued my father, "who in some deep
wood has been frightened, thinking he has lost his way, and suddenly
coming to the end of it, finds that by some lucky chance he has been
guided to the right point after all. I cannot tell you what a comfort it
is to me.

"What is the right point?" asked Barbara.

"Ah, that I cannot tell you," answered my father, with a laugh. "I only
know that for me it is here where I am. All the time I thought I was
wandering away from it I was drawing nearer to it. It is very wonderful.
I am just where I ought to be. If I had only known I never need have
worried."

Whether it would have troubled either hi