hout words.

"Dear child!" he said,--"my own little Mignonette!--you must not forget
what you said to me,--and you must not forget that I hope to come home
quite often. There was a time, when I thought I might have to go away
and never have the right to come and see you again. And you must think
to yourself--though you will not speak of it to me--that after this bit
of time, all our life will be spent together. You need not expect me to
wait for anything--not even the cottage you like so much."

She did not answer immediately, as was natural, his last suggestions
not being very word-provoking with her. But when she did speak, it was
in a clear, cheerful tone.

"I'll bear my part, Endy--I should be very ungrateful if I couldn't.
And you can bear your part--I am glad to think of that!--for you are
working for a Master that always gives full pay."

"We can always bear God's will," he said, a little gravely,--"it is
only our own that points the trial and makes it unbearable."

CHAPTER XIV.

Faith had no chance to think that night. She went to sleep
conscientiously. And a chance the next morning was out of the question.
She dared not come down as early as usual, if her own strength would
have let her. The few minutes before breakfast were busy ones; and the
few hours after breakfast. Faith went about with the consciousness of
something on her heart to be looked at; but it had to bide its time.
Her household duties done, her preparations for Mr. Linden being
already in advance, she had leisure to attend to this other thing. And
alone Faith sat down and looked at it.

It was the first real steady trial her life had known. Her father's
death had come when she was too young to feel deeply any want that her
mother could not fill. To be away from anything she much loved was a
sorrow Faith hardly knew by experience. But a two years' separation was
a very, very heavy and sharp pain to think of; and Faith had an inward
assurance that the reality would be heavier and sharper than her
thoughts beforehand could make it. Perhaps it was too great a pain to
be struggled with; for Faith did not struggle--or not long. She sat
down and looked at it,--what she had not dared to do the night
before;--measured it and weighed it; and then bowed her heart and head
to it in utter submission. With it came such a crowd of glad and good
things, things indeed that made the trial and were bound up with
it,--that Faith locked the one and t