et of kitchen
cloths; and if you'll excuse me mentioning it, miss, there's Jane, miss,
using glass cloths as tea cloths, and dusters as knife cloths."

Erica looked slightly distracted, but diverted her mind from the state
of Ireland to the state of the household linen, and, when left alone
once more, laughed to herself at the incongruity of the two subjects.

It was nearly a fortnight before Brian returned from Switzerland. Erica
knew that he was in the well-known house on the opposite side of the
square, and through the trees in the garden, they could see each the
other's place of residence. It was a sort of nineteenth-century version
of the Rhine legend, in which the knight of Rolandseek looked down upon
Nomenwerth where his lady love was immured in a convent.

She had rather dreaded the first meeting, but, when it came, she felt
nothing of what she had feared. She was in the habit of going on Sunday
morning to the eight o'clock service at the church in the square. It was
nearer than Charles Osmond's church, and the hour interfered less with
household arrangements. Just at the corner of the square on the morning
of Trinity Sunday, she met Brian. Her heart beat quickly as she shook
hands with him, but there was something in his bearing which set her
entirely at her ease after just the first minute. He looked much older,
and a certain restlessness in look and manner had quite left him, giving
place to a peculiar calm not unlike his father's expression. It was the
expression which a man wears when he has lost the desire of his heart,
yet manfully struggles on, allowing no bitterness to steal in, facing
unflinchingly the grayness of a crippled life. Somehow, joining in that
thanksgiving service seemed to give them the true key-note for their
divided lives. As they came out into the porch, he asked her a question.

"You are an authority on quotations, I know; my father wants to verify
one for his sermon this morning. Can you help him? It is this:

'Revealed in love and sacrifice,
The Holiest passed before thine eyes,
One and the same, in threefold guise.'"

"It is Whittier, I know," said Erica, promptly; "and I think it is in a
poem called 'Trinitas.' Come home with me, and we will hunt for it."

So they walked back together silently, and found the poem, and at
Raeburn's request Brian stayed to breakfast, and fell back naturally
into his old place with them all.

The following day Raeburn had to attend