there was a note from Grace Carden.

"MY OWN DEAREST HENRY,--I find that you have called, and been denied me;
and that Mr. Coventry has been admitted into the house.

"I have therefore left Woodbine Villa, and taken lodgings opposite.
Sister Gratiosa has convinced me I ought to labor for the eternal
welfare of the guilty, unhappy man whose name it is my misfortune to
bear. I will try to do so: but nobody shall either compel, or persuade
me, to be cruel to my dear Henry, to whom I owe my life once more, and
who is all the world to me. I shall now be employed nearly all the day,
but I reserve two hours, from three till five, when you will always find
me at home. Our course is clear. We must pray for patience.

"Yours to eternity, GRACE."

After reading this letter, and pondering it well, Henry Little's
fortitude revived, and, as he could not speak his mind to Grace at that
moment, he wrote to her, after some hours of reflection, as follows:

"MY OWN DEAREST GRACE,--I approve, I bless you. Our case is hard, but
not desperate. We have been worse off than we are now. I agree with you
that our course is clear; what we have got to do, as I understand it, is
to outlive a crippled scoundrel. Well, love and a clear conscience will
surely enable us to outlive a villain, whose spine is injured, and whose
conscience must gnaw him, and who has no creature's love to nourish him.

"Yours in this world, and, I hope, in the next,

"HENRY."

Sister Gratiosa, to oblige Grace stayed at Woodbine Villa. She was
always present at any interview of Coventry and Grace.

Little softened her, by giving her money whenever she mentioned a case
of distress. She had but this one pleasure in life, a pure one, and her
poverty had always curbed it hard. She began to pity this poor sinner,
who was ready to pour his income into her lap for Christian purposes.

And so the days rolled on. Raby took into his head to repair the old
church, and be married in it. This crotchet postponed his happiness for
some months.

But the days and weeks rolled on.

Raby became Sheriff of the county.

Coventry got a little better, and moved to the next villa.

Then Grace returned at once to Woodbine Villa; but she still paid
charitable visits with Sister Gratiosa to the wreck whose name she bore.

She was patient.

But Little, the man of action, began to faint.

He decided to return to the United States for a year or two, and
distract his mind.

W