im, never rushed out wildly snatching at something to do
for God, never helped a lazy man to break stones, never preached to
foxes. It was what the Father gave him to do that he cared to do, and
that only. It was the man next him that he helped--the neighbor in need
of the help he had. He did not trouble himself greatly about the
happiness of men, but when the time and the opportunity arrived in which
to aid the struggling birth of the eternal bliss, the whole strength of
his being responded to the call. And now, having felt a thread vibrate,
like a sacred spider he sat in the center of his web of love, and waited
and watched.

In proportion as the love is pure, and only in proportion to that, can
such be a pure and real calling. The least speck of self will defile
it--a little more may ruin its most hopeful effort.

Two days after, he heard, from some of the boys hurrying to the pond,
that Mrs. Faber was missing. He followed them, and from a spot beyond
the house, looking down upon the lake, watched their proceedings. He
saw them find her bonnet--a result which left him room to doubt. Almost
the next moment a wavering film of blue smoke rising from the Old House
caught his eye. It did not surprise him, for he knew Dorothy Drake was
in the habit of going there--knew also by her face for what she went:
accustomed to seek solitude himself, he knew the relations of it. Very
little had passed between them. Sometimes two persons are like two drops
running alongside of each other down a window-pane: one marvels how it
is they can so long escape running together. Persons fit to be bosom
friends will meet and part for years, and never say much beyond
good-morning and good-night.

But he bethought him that he had not before known her light a fire, and
the day certainly was not a cold one. Again, how was it that with the
cries of the boys in her ears, searching for a sight of the body in her
very garden, she had never come from the house, or even looked from a
window? Then it came to his mind what a place for concealment the Old
House was: he knew every corner of it; and thus he arrived at what was
almost the conviction that Mrs. Faber was there. When a day or two had
passed, he was satisfied that, for some reason or other, she was there
for refuge. The reason must be a good one, else Dorothy would not be
aiding--and it must of course have to do with her husband.

He next noted how, for some time, Dorothy never went through hi