one,' sez she, ez quick ez a flash. I've been
tryin' to do it ever since."

"You dear Penelope!" exclaimed Evadne, "I think you have!"

"It's all a wale, child, a wale o' tears," old Mrs. Riggs complained as
she bade her good-bye in the porch, but when she reached the turn in the
road she heard Penelope singing,--

"Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Thine own hand;
Choose out my path for me.
I dare not choose my lot,
I would not if I might;
Choose Thou for me, My God,
So shall I walk aright."

and Evadne knew that in the brave heart the voice of Christ had made the
storm a calm.

"You dear Aunt Marthe! How am I ever going to thank you for all you
have been to me; and what shall I do without you?" Evadne spoke the
words wistfully. They were making the most of their last evening.

"Why, dear child, we can always be together in spirit. 'It is not
distance in miles that separates people but distance in feeling.'
Emerson says,--'A man really lives where his thought is,' so you can be
in Vernon and I in Marlborough,--each of us held close in the hush of
God's love, which 'in its breadth is a girdle that encompasses the globe
and a mantle that enwraps it.'"

Evadne caught Mrs. Everidge's face between her hands and kissed it
reverently. "I mean to devote my life to making other people happy, as
you do, my saint," she said.

* * * * *

"Board!" The conductor's cry of warning smote the air and the train
passengers made a final bustle of preparation for a start. Mrs. Everidge
caught Evadne close in a last embrace.

"My precious little sister, I shall miss you every day!" Then she was
gone, and Evadne, looking eagerly out of her window, saw the dear face,
from which the tears had been swept away, smiling brightly at her from
the platform.

"You magnificent Christian!" she cried. "You will give others the
sunshine always!"

* * * * *

The train steamed into the station at Marlborough and again Louis came
forward to greet her with a look of admiration on his unusually animated
face.

"Well done, Evadne! If the atmosphere of Vernon can work such
transformation as this, it ought to be bottled up and sold at twenty
dollars the dozen. You go away looking like a snow-wraith, and you
return a blooming Hebe."

Evadne laughed merrily. "Thank you. The atmosphere of Vernon has a
wonderful power," but it was no