and, urged by the human instinct after the divine, seek refuge
in loneliness--the cave on Horeb, the top of Mount Sinai, the closet
with shut door--any lonely place where, unseen, and dreading no eye, the
heart may call aloud to the God hidden behind the veil of the things
that do appear.

How different, yet how fit to merge in a mutual sympathy, were the
thoughts of the two, as they wandered about the place that evening!
Dorothy was thinking her commonest thought--how happy she could be if
only she knew there was a Will central to the universe, willing all that
came to her--good or seeming-bad--a Will whom she might love and thank
for _all_ things. He would be to her no God whom she could thank only
when He sent her what was pleasant. She must be able to thank Him for
every thing, or she could thank Him for nothing.

Her father was saying to himself he could not have believed the lifting
from his soul of such a gravestone of debt, would have made so little
difference to his happiness. He fancied honest Jones, the butcher, had
more mere pleasure from the silver snuff-box he had given him, than he
had himself from his fortune. Relieved he certainly was, but the relief
was not happiness. His debt had been the stone that blocked up the gate
of Paradise: the stone was rolled away, but the gate was not therefore
open. He seemed for the first time beginning to understand what he had
so often said, and in public too, and had thought he understood, that
God Himself, and not any or all of His gifts, is the life of a man. He
had got rid of the dread imagination that God had given him the money in
anger, as He had given the Israelites the quails, nor did he find that
the possession formed any barrier between him and God: his danger, now
seemed that of forgetting the love of the Giver in his anxiety to spend
the gift according to His will.

"You and I ought to be very happy, my love," he said, as now they were
walking home.

He had often said so before, and Dorothy had held her peace; but now,
with her eyes on the ground, she rejoined, in a low, rather broken
voice,

"Why, papa?"

"Because we are lifted above the anxiety that was crushing us into the
very mud," he answered, with surprise at her question.

"It never troubled me so much as all that," she answered. "It is a great
relief to see you free from it, father; but otherwise, I can not say
that it has made much difference to me."

"My dear Dorothy," said the ministe