n the surface, life seemed to be going on at "Gunn's" much as before.
Jim and Sally and Raby made a family centre, to which the lonely doctor
attached himself more and more. He came more and more to feel that Raby
was a legacy left by Hetty to him. He had ceased to have any unjust
resentment towards the child from his innocent association with her
death: he knew that she had loved the boy as if he were her own; and,
in his long sad reveries about the future, he found a sort of melancholy
pleasure in planning for Raby as he would have done had he been Hetty's
child. These plans for Raby, and his own devotion to his profession,
were Dr. Eben's only pleasure. He was fast becoming a physician of note.
He was frequently sent for in consultation to all parts of the county;
and his contributions to medical journals were held in high esteem. The
physician, the student, had gained unspeakably by the loss which had so
nearly crushed the man.

Development and strength, gained at such cost, are like harvests
springing out of land which had to be burned black with fire before it
would yield its increase.

XIII.

Hetty first entered the village of St. Mary's at sunset. The chapel bell
was ringing for the Angelus, and as the nondescipt little vehicle, half
diligence half coach, crept through the sandy streets, Hetty, looking
eagerly out, saw men, women, and children falling on their knees by the
road-side. She recollected having noted this custom when she was in
St. Mary's before: then it had seemed to her senseless mummery; now it
seemed beautiful. Hetty had just come through dark places, in which she
had wanted help from God more than she had ever in her life wanted it;
and these evident signs of faith, of an established relation between
earth and heaven, fell most gratefully upon her aching heart. The
village of St. Mary's is a mere handful of houses, on a narrow stretch
of sandy plain, lying between two forests of firs. Many years ago,
hunters, finding in the depths of these forests springs of great
medicinal value, made a little clearing about them, and built there
a few rough shanties to which they might at any time resort for the
waters. Gradually, the fame of the waters was noised abroad, and drew
settlers to the spot. The clearing was widened; houses were built;
a village grew up; line after line, as a new street was needed, the
forests were cut down, but remained still a solid, dark-green wall and
background to the