, before its
publication? Could she bear the thought of it? She loved it almost as a
mother loves her child. A look of indecision crossed her face. But, just
then, she seemed to hear the bells of heaven ringing forth their sweet
Gospel call. The bright sunshine and the angel voices of a higher life
seemed to break in on her soul. In a moment--she never knew how it
was--she became willing to surrender all. It was hardly a year since she
had said nay to Arthur, when he asked her to lay her life at the feet of
that same Jesus of Nazareth. She refused then, and even one hour ago
she would still have refused; but now she would have trudged the
highways, poverty-stricken, unknown and obscure, for His dear sake. She
would have gone forth, like St. Paul, to the uttermost ends of the
earth, she felt she loved Him so! There were tears in her eyes, and a
new joy seemed to throb in her heart. She felt so kindly to everyone
about her. Was it an impulse or what? She laid her hand softly on May
Perth's as she sat beside her, and May, looking into her eyes, seemed to
read her heart. She held her hand with a warm, loving pressure, and they
were friends from that hour.

Even the sunlight looked more golden when Beth stepped out into it that
afternoon. Everything had caught a tint from the pearly gates, for that
hour had been a turning-point in her life. She had found the secret of
life--the secret of putting self utterly into the background and living
for others' happiness; and they who find that secret have the key to
their own happiness. The old tinge of gloom in her grey eyes passed
away, and, instead, there came into them the warmth and light of a new
life. They seemed to reach out over the whole world with tender
sympathy, like a deep, placid sea, with the sunlight gilding, its
depths.

"Beth, you are growing beautiful," her father said to her one day; and
there were something so reverential in his look that it touched her too
deeply to make her vain.

The four weeks that remained before the first of October, when she was
to return to college, passed quickly. Clarence did not return, and she
heard that he had gone to England, intending to take his degree at
Cambridge. The Ashleys, too, had left Briarsfield, as Mr. Ashley had
secured a principalship east of Toronto. Beth heard nothing more of
Marie, though she would so gladly have forgiven her now!

Beth soon became quite absorbed in her new friend, May Perth. She told
her one d