sounds because
she could once more realize that there was One who made even "the wrath
of man to praise" Him; who, out of blackest evil and cruelest pain,
could at length bring good. Presently, passing from the restfulness of
that conscious communion, she remembered a strange dream she had had
that night.

She had dreamed that she was sitting with Donovan in the little church
yard at Oakdene; in her hand she held a Greek Testament, but upon the
page had only been able to see one sentence. It ran thus, "Until the
times of the Restitution of all things." Donovan had insisted that
the word should rightly be "restoration." She had clung to the old
rendering. While they discussed the distinction between the words,
a beautiful girl had all at once stood before them. Erica knew in an
instant who it must be by the light which shone in her companion's face.

"You are quite right," she had said, turning her beautiful eyes upon
him. "It is not the mere giving back of things that were, it is the
perfecting of that which was here only in ideal; it is the carrying out
of what might have been. All the time there has been progress, all the
time growth, and so restoration is better, wider, grander than anything
we could dream of here!"

And, as she left them, there had come to both a sort of vision of the
Infinite, in sight of which the whole of earthly existence was but as
an hour, and the sum of human suffering but as the pin prick to a strong
man, and yet both human suffering and human existence were infinitely
worth while. And over them stole a wonderful peace as they realized
the greatness of God's universe, and that in it was no wasted thing,
no wasted pain, but order where there seemed confusion, and a soul of
goodness where there seemed evil.

And, after all, what was this dream compared with the reality which she
knew to exist? Well, it was perhaps a little fragment, a dim shadow, a
seeing through the glass darkly; but mostly it was a comfort because she
was all the time conscious that there was an infinitely Better which it
has not entered into the heart of man to conceive.

Brian came in for his morning visit with a face so worn and anxious that
it made her smile.

"Oh!" she said, looking up at him with quiet, shining eyes, "how I have
been troubling you all these weeks! But you are not to be troubled any
more, darling. I am going to get better."

And with a sort of grateful, loving tenderness, she drew his face down