unrelenting inquiry, she pursued, "You have not
been happy for the last few weeks, Paula. Our life seems narrow to you;
you long to fly away to larger fields and more expansive skies."

With a guilty droop of her head, Paula stole her hand into that of her
aunt's.

"I do not wonder," continued Miss Belinda, still watching the flushing
cheek and slightly troubled mouth of the lovely girl before her. "I once
breathed other air myself, and know well what charms lie beyond these
mountains. In giving you up for awhile, I gave you up forever, I fear."

"No, no," whispered the young girl, "I am always yours wherever I go.
Not that I am going away," she hastily murmured.

Her aunt smiled and gently stroked her niece's hand. "When the time
comes, I shall bid you God speed, Paula. I am no ogress to tie my dove's
wings to her nest. Love and the home it provides are the natural lot of
women. None feel it more than those who have missed both."

"Aunt!" Paula was shocked and perplexed. A breaking wave full of doubts
and possibilities, seemed to dash over her at this suggestion.

"Young men of judgment and principle do not come so many miles to see a
youthful maiden, without a purpose," continued her aunt inexorably. "You
know that, do you not, Paula?"

"Yes; but the purpose may differ in different cases," returned the young
girl hurriedly. "I would not like to believe that Mr. Ensign came here
with the one you give him credit for--not yet. You trouble me, aunt,"
pursued she, glancing tremulously about. "It is like opening a great
door flooded with sunshine, upon eyes scarcely strong enough to bear the
glimmer sifting through its cracks. I feel humiliated and--" She did not
finish, perhaps her thought itself was incomplete.

"If a light comes sifting through the cracks, I am satisfied," said her
aunt in a lighter tone than common. And she kissed her niece, and went
smiling out of the room, murmuring to herself,

"I have been over-fearful; everything is coming right."

There are moments when life's great mystery overpowers us; when the
riddle of the soul flaunts itself before us unexplained, and we can do
no more than stand and take the rush of the tide that comes sweeping
down upon us. Paula was not the girl she was before she went to New
York. Love was no longer a dreamy possibility, a hazy blending of the
unknown and the fancied; its tale had been too often breathed in her
ear, its reality made too often apparent to her e