er's joy at that.
Who does not know the sudden thrill of rapture when there comes to us a
sudden summons to a long and unexpected journey?

And Margaret was starting on a long journey, how long, only God could
tell. She thought of this as she glanced about the pretty room that had
shared her secret thoughts since childhood, that had seen the awaking of
her love, and had oftentimes kept with her the vigil of unsleeping joy.
More than once the poor little room had feared it was soon to be
outgrown, and left far behind; but still at night Margaret would return
to its pure protection, and still it knew the fragrance of a virgin's
trembling love.

She was almost through the door when she turned once again and bade it a
long farewell, the same as a maiden on her bridal morn. For she too was
on her way to an altar; and the vows for sickness or health, for life or
death, seemed to be upon her now.

She had got as far as the garden gate when she stopped suddenly.

"I have forgotten the letter," she said to herself. Laying her
travelling-bag upon the ground, she ran swiftly back, but the door had
locked behind her, and her latch-key was in her room.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she cried to herself. "I cannot get
in without the letter, and they will soon be back."

She flew along the veranda to a window and pressed it upward. It
yielded, and her joy flowed like a river. Up she flung it, far up, and
with a bound the active form was upon the sill and disappeared into the
room. The letter lay where she had left it, and in a moment the precious
passport was in its hiding-place. A moment later, the gate swung shut
behind her. Her bosom throbbed with a new courage as it felt the touch
of the letter that was entrusted to its keeping; for this was her
warrant, her pledge of passage on that long journey towards which she
pressed so eagerly. Oh, woman! who countest pestilence thy friend when
it is in league with love!

On she pressed, on through the frosty night. The snow made music beneath
her hurrying feet, the bridge by which she crossed the river cracked and
echoed with the frost, and the Northern lights flashed the signals of
their heavenly masonry--for what knew they of plague and love and
sorrow, and of the story of this poor tracing-board of time?

But Margaret never thought of this, for she, too, had her own secret
symbols, and her heart its own mighty language, voiced, like the
other's, in alternate floods of lig