ith a great deliverance. So it was not you that
sent me hither, but God.... And thou shalt dwell in the land of
Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me."

A great throb of thankfulness, of gladness, came rushing up in her;
it filled her eyes with light; it flushed her cheeks with tender
color. The tears sprung shining; but they did not fall. Peace stayed
them. It was such an answer!

"How pretty you are!" said Maggie, awakening. "Please, give me a
drink of water."

It was as if Susie thought of it, and gave her the chance! She read
secret, loving meanings now, in things that had their meanings only
for her. She believed in spirit-communication,--for she knew it
came; but in its own beautiful, soul-to-soul ways; not by any
outward spells.

She went for the water; she found a piece of ice and put in it. She
came and raised the little head tenderly,--the child was hurt in the
back, and could not be lifted up,--and held the goblet to the gentle
lips; lips patient, like Sue's!

"O, you move me so nice! You give me the drink so handy!"

The beauty was in Marion's face still, warm with an inward joy; the
child's eyes followed her as she rose from bending over her.

"Real pretty," she said again, softly, liking to look at her. And
"real" was beginning to be the word, at last, for Marion Kent.

The glory of that poem she had read, thinking only of her own petty
triumph, came suddenly over her thought by some association,--she
could not trace out how. Its grand meaning was a meaning, all at
once, for her. With a changed phrasing, like a heavenly inspiration,
the last line sprang up in her mind, as if somebody stood by and
spoke it:--

"These are the lambs of the sacrifice: _this_ is the court
of the King!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

BRICKFIELD FARMS.

It was a rainy, desolate day.

It had rained the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and half
cleared up last night; then this morning it had sullenly and
tiresomely begun again.

All the forenoon it grew worse; in the afternoon, heavy, pelting,
streaming showers came down, filling the Kiln Hollow with mist, and
hiding the tops of the hills about it with low, rolling,
ever-gathering and resolving clouds.

It seemed as if all the autumn joy were over; as if the pleasant
days were done with till another year. After this, the cold would
set in.

Mrs. Jeffords had a bright fire built in Mrs. Argenter's room,
another in the family sitting-room. It looked cos