"

Dolly started, lifted her quivering, tearful face, and looked straight
at him. "Yes," she said,--"what then?"

"I always thought religious folks had something to comfort them."

"Don't think they haven't," said Dolly. But there she broke down again,
and it was a storm of a rain shower that poured from her eyes this
time. She struggled to get the better of it, and as soon as she could
she sat up again, brushing the tears right and left with her hands and
speaking in a voice still half choked.

"Don't think they haven't! If I had not _that_, my heart would just
break and be done with it. But being a Christian does not keep one from
suffering--sometimes." Her voice failed.

"What is the matter? No, I don't mean that you should tell me that;
only--can't I do something?"

"No, thank you; nobody can. Yes, you are doing a great deal, Rupert;
you are the greatest comfort to me. I depend upon you."

Rupert's eyes glistened. He was silent for sheer swelling of heart. He
gulped down something--and went on presently.

"I was thinkin' of something my old mother used to say. I know I've
heard her say it, lots o' times. I don't know what the trouble is,
that's a fact--so maybe I hadn't oughter speak; but _she_ used to say
that nothing could happen to Christians that would do 'em any real
hurt."

"I know," said Dolly, wondering to herself how it could be true; "the
Bible says so."--And then conscience rebuked her. "And it _is_ true,"
she said, lifting up her head; "everything is true that the Bible says,
and that is true; and it says other things"----

"What?" said Rupert; more for her sake, I confess, than for his own.

"It says--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid
upon Thee;' I was reading it this morning. You see I must be a very
poor Christian, or I should not have doubted a minute. But even a
Christian, and the best, must be sorry sometimes for things he cannot
help," said Dolly.

"Then you were not troubled about yourself just now?" said Rupert.

"Yes, I was! I was indeed, in spite of all those words and a great many
others. I believe I forgot them."

"I should think, if God gives people promises, He would like them to be
trusted," said Rupert "That's what _we_ do."

Dolly looked at him again as if he had said something that struck her;
and then she got up, and taking his arm, set off this time at a
business pace. She knew, she said, where to find what she wanted;
however, she had gone