r, we are prepared to
offer you a place on our staff. The work required was explained to you
yesterday. For this we offer a salary of 200 pounds per annum. Should
you signify your acceptance of these terms, we will send you our usual
form of agreement. I am yours faithfully, Jacob Bircham.

"To Miss Raeburn."

"Commend me to people who don't raise one's expectations!" said Erica,
rapturously. "Three cheers for my dear, stiff old editor!"

So that anxiety was over, and Erica was most thankful to have such a
load taken off her mind. The comfort of it helped her through a very
trying summer.

CHAPTER XXIII. Erica to the Rescue

Isabel: I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul
in the truth of my spirit.

Duke: Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Measure for Measure

It was the first of September. Watering places were crowded with
visitors, destruction had begun among the partridges, and a certain
portion of the hard-working community were taking their annual holiday.

Raeburn, whose holidays were few and far between, had been toiling away
all through the summer months in town. This evening, as he sat in his
stifling little study, he had fallen into a blank fit of depression. He
could neither work nor read. Strong as his nature was, it was not
always proof against this grim demon, which avenged itself on him for
overtasking his brain, shortening his hours of sleep, and in other ways
sacrificing himself to his work. Tonight, however, there was reason for
his depression; for while he sat fighting his demon at home, Erica had
gone to Charles Osmond's church it was the evening of her baptism.

Of course it was the necessary sequence of the confession she had made
a few months before, and Raeburn had long known that it was inevitable;
but none the less did he this evening suffer more acutely than he had
yet suffered, realizing more fully his child's defection The private
confession had startled, shocked, grieved him inexpressibly; but the
public profession, with its sense of irrevocableness, filled his heart
with a grief for which he could find no single ray of comfort.

Erica's brave endurance of all the trials and discomforts involved in
her change of faith had impressed him not a little, and even when most
hurt and annoyed by her new views, he had always tried to shield her;
but it had been a hard summer, and the loss of the home unity had tried
him sorely.

Moreover, the