nd all night was talking in troubled dreams. Once Dorothy
heard him say, as if he had been talking to God face to face: "O my God,
if I had but once seen Thee, I do not think I could ever have mistrusted
Thee. But I could never be quite sure."

The morning brought lucidity. How many dawns a morning brings! His first
words were "How goes it with the child?" Having heard that she had had a
good night, and was almost well, he turned over, and fell fast asleep.
Then Dorothy, who had been by his bed all night, resumed her own
garments, and went to the door.

CHAPTER XLV.

HERE AND THERE.

The rain had ceased, and the flood was greatly diminished. It was
possible, she judged, to reach the Old House, and after a hasty
breakfast, she set out, leaving her father to Mrs. Roberts's care. The
flood left her no choice but go by the high road to Polwarth's gate, and
then she had often to wade through mud and water. The moment she saw the
gatekeeper, she knew somehow by his face that Juliet was in the lodge.
When she entered, she saw that already her new circumstances were
working upon her for peace. The spiritual atmosphere, so entirely human,
the sense that she was not and would not be alone, the strange talk
which they held openly before her, the food they coaxed her to eat, the
whole surrounding of thoughts and things as they should be, was
operating far more potently than could be measured by her understanding
of their effects, or even consciousness of their influences. She still
looked down upon the dwarfs, condescended to them, had a vague feeling
that she honored them by accepting their ministration--for which, one
day, she would requite them handsomely. Not the less had she all the
time a feeling that she was in the society of ministering spirits of
God, good and safe and true. From the Old House to the cottage was from
the Inferno to the Purgatorio, across whose borders faint wafts from
Paradise now and then strayed wandering. Without knowing it, she had
begun already to love the queer little woman, with the wretched body,
the fine head, and gentle, suffering face; while the indescribable awe,
into which her aversion to the kobold, with his pigeon-chest, his
wheezing breath, his great head, and his big, still face, which to such
eyes as the curate's seemed to be looking into both worlds at once, had
passed over, bore no unimportant part in that portion of her discipline
here commenced. One of the loftiest spirits