seemed at last to pierce beneath the armour
of his devout abstraction. Fortune at work chooses her a fine-edged
instrument, and Joseph Smith, with unerring but probably half conscious
instinct, had sent the right messenger. The cloud of serious intent on
the youth's face broke now into a sudden admiring glance, half playful
yet fully earnest. His gray eyes held for a moment gracious parley with
hers. "Wilt thou," he asked, still smiling, "give it as excuse in the
day of judgment that they would not let thee think?"

"N-n-no." She was more struck with the inadequacy of the excuse than
with the fact that she had a better one if she had chosen to give it.

He was again grave, but he was not now unappreciative. "Thou art very
fair, and beauty to a young woman is, no doubt, a great snare. I will
wrestle in prayer for thee."

He was going down the brick walk between the masses of drenched flowers.
"Don't," cried Susannah faintly, "don't do that." But he did not hear
her.

CHAPTER IV.

The wind that in the hurly-burly out of doors had been a cheerful if
boisterous enemy, seemed suddenly transformed into a wailing spirit when
Susannah was making her way up the stairs of the darkening wooden house.
Its master and mistress had not yet returned from burying the dead. The
girl made her way up to Ephraim's room. The books were left open upon
the table; no one was there.

It was a new thing that Ephraim should breast a storm.

Susannah trudged downstairs again and dried her bedraggled skirts at the
fire--an empty house, a dreary wailing wind, and gathering twilight for
her sole companions.

At length a step was heard. Ephraim came in bearing Susannah's rain
cloak and goloshes. He was wet, pale, and breathless, but he would not
betray his weakness and excitement by a word.

"You were looking for me, Ephraim, and some one told you that I had come
home. Did you hear who brought me? O Ephraim! I have been out walking
with the false prophet, and then with one of his disciples." Susannah,
sitting by the fire, looked at him trying to smile through his gloom.

She began again, then stopped; how to impart the full flavour of that
which had befallen her she did not know. It seemed to her that the
difficulty lay in Ephraim's silence. She was not aware that she had not
even a distinct thought for a certain interest in her late companion
which she most wanted to put into words. "Ephraim, it's all very well
for you to stand the