ongs, or any that
Fanny was fond of.

But it was growing late. They would be anxious. I must get up and go
home. Go _home_!--without my home-mates?--leave them here?--with no
kiss,--no good-night? I stood up, and sat down again. The blinding,
choking passion, that had seemed over, swelled up into my eyes and
throat once more. O that lonely, empty life! Must I go back to it? How
long would it last? This was my only real home. When might I come here
to sleep?

In an instant it would have been all over again with my hardly-won calm;
but in that instant a white and gray fluttering between the green graves
caught my tear-blurred sight. I thought it that of a living dove, but,
going nearer, found only a piece of torn newspaper, which had been
wrapped around the stems of the flowers, playing in the wind; and on it
my attention was caught by these quaint and pithy lines, printed in one
corner in double columns:--

"THE CONDITIONS.

"Sad soul, long harboring fears and woes
Within a haunted breast.
Haste but to meet your lowly Lord,
And he shall give you rest.

"Into his commonwealth alike
Are ills and blessings thrown.
Bear you your neighbors' loads; and

* * * * *

"Yield only up His price, your heart,
Into God's loving hold,--
He turns with heavenly alchemy
Your lead of life to gold.

"Some needful pangs endure in peace,
Nor yet for freedom pant,--
He cuts the bane you cleave to off,
Then ..."

The rest was torn away. "'And,'" repeated I, impatiently,--"'Then'!
'_And_--_then_'--what?" There was no answer, or at least I heard none;
but the verses, so far as they went, struck my excited fancy as a kind
of preternatural confirmation of the faint outline of life and duty
which I had been sketching. I marked the date of the day upon the white
margin with my pencil, and took the paper with me as a memento of the
time and place, trimmed its torn edges carefully, and laid it in Fanny's
little Bible.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning, at breakfast, Dr. Physick said: "You did me a good
office, Katy, by singing me to sleepiness last night. I was as tired as
a dog,--no, as a whole pack of Esquimaux dogs,--and, instead of lying
awake and saying to myself, every time I turned over, 'What in this wide
world am I ever going to do with that poor little Nelly Fader?' I only
repeated, whenever I came to myself a lit