om himself that the friendship of lady
Arctura, and the help she sought and he gave, had added a fresh and
strong interest to his life. At the first dawn of power in his heart,
when he began to make songs in the fields and on the hills, he had felt
that to brighten with true light the clouded lives of despondent
brothers and sisters was the one thing worthest living for: it was what
the Lord came into the world for; neither had his trouble made him
forget it--for more than one week or so: while the pain was yet gnawing
grievously, he woke to it again with self-accusation--almost
self-contempt. To have helped this lovely creature, whose life had
seemed lapt in an ever closer-clasping shroud of perplexity, was a
thing to be glad of--not to the day of his death, but to the
never-ending end of his life! was an honour conferred upon him by the
Father, to last for evermore! For he had helped to open a human door
for the Lord to enter! she within heard him knock, but, trying, was
unable to open! To be God's helper with our fellows is the one high
calling; the presence of God in the house the one high condition.

At the end of a week Arctura was better, and able to see Donal. She had
had mistress Brookes's bed moved into the same room with her own, and
had made the dressing-room into a sitting-room. It was sunny and
pleasant--the very place, Donal thought, he would have chosen for her.
The bedroom too, which the housekeeper had persuaded her to take when
she left her own, was one of the largest in the castle--the
Garland-room--old-fashioned, of course, but as cheerful as stateliness
would permit, with gorgeous hangings and great pictures--far from
homely, but with sun in it half the day. Donal congratulated her on the
change. She had been prevented from making one sooner, she said, by the
dread of owing any comfort to circumstance: it might deceive her as to
her real condition!

"It could not deceive God, though," answered Donal, "who fills with
righteousness those who hunger after it. It is pride to refuse anything
that might help us to know him; and of all things his sun-lit world
speaks of the father of lights! If that makes us happier, it makes us
fitter to understand him, and he can easily send what cloud may be
needful to temper it. We must not make our own world, inflict our own
punishments, or order our own instruction; we must simply obey the
voice in our hearts, and take lovingly what he sends."

The next day she t