ight, Aunt Hitty" returned Araminta, cheerfully. "As it happens,
I'm not."

Miss Mehitable repressed an exclamation of horror. Seemingly, then, it
had occurred to Araminta to go out in the evening--alone!

Miss Mehitable's feet moved swiftly away from the house. She was going
to the residence of the oldest and most orthodox deacon in Thorpe's
church, to ask for guidance in dealing with her wayward charge, but
Araminta never dreamed of this.

Dusk came, the sweet, June dusk, starred with fireflies and clouded
with great white moths. The roses and mignonette and honeysuckle made
the air delicately fragrant. To the emancipated one, it was, indeed, a
beautiful world.

Austin Thorpe came out, having found his room unbearably close. As the
near-sighted sometimes do, he saw more clearly at twilight than at
other times.

"You here, child?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm here," replied Araminta, happily. "Sit down, won't you?"
Having taken the first step, she found the others comparatively easy,
and was rejoicing in her new freedom. She felt sure, too, that some
day she should see Doctor Ralph once more and all would be made right
between them.

The minister sat down gladly, his old heart yearning toward Araminta as
toward a loved and only child. "Where is your aunt?" he asked, timidly.

"Goodness knows," laughed Araminta, irreverently. "She's gone out, in
all her best clothes. She didn't say whether she was coming back or
not."

Thorpe was startled, for he had never heard speech like this from
Araminta. He knew her only as a docile, timid child. Now, she seemed
suddenly to have grown up.

For her part, Araminta remembered how the minister had once helped her
out of a difficulty, and taken away from her forever the terrible,
haunting fear of hell. Here was a dazzling opportunity to acquire new
knowledge.

"Mr. Thorpe," she demanded, eagerly, "what is it to be married?"

"To be married," repeated Austin Thorpe, dreamily, his eyes fixed upon
a firefly that flitted, star-tike, near the rose, "is, I think, the
nearest this world can come to Heaven."

"Oh!" cried Araminta, in astonishment. "What does it mean?"

"It means," answered Thorpe, softly, "that a man and a woman whom God
meant to be mated have found each other at last. It means there is
nothing in the world that you have to face alone, that all your joys
are doubled and all your sorrows shared. It means that there is no
depth into which you can go a