y and exhausted, as if her strength had been
overtaxed. Her childhood on the fresh, breezy uplands, and her happy,
tranquil temperament had hitherto kept her in perfect health. But now
she felt as if the sins of those whom she had loved so tenderly and
loyally touched the very springs of her life. She could have shared any
other burden with them, and borne it with an unbroken spirit and an
uncrushed heart. But such a sin as this, so full of woe and bewilderment
to them all, entangled her soul also in its poisonous web.

"Why did you sigh so bitterly?" asked Felicita again.

"The world is so full of misery," she answered, in a tremulous and
troubled voice; "its happiness is such a mockery!"

"Have you found that out at last, dear Phebe?" said Felicita. "I have
been telling you so for years. The Son of Man fainting under the
Cross--that is the true emblem of human life. Even He had not strength
enough to bear His cross to the place called Golgotha. Whenever I think
of what most truly represents our life here, I see Jesus, faltering
along the rough road, with Simon behind Him, whom they compelled to bear
His cross."

"He fainted under the sins of the world," murmured Phebe. "It is
possible to bear the sorrows of others; but oh! it is hard to carry
their sins."

"We all find that out," said Felicita, her face growing wan and white
even to the lips. "Can one man do evil without the whole world suffering
for it? Does the effect of a sin ever die out? What is done cannot be
undone through all eternity. There is the wretchedness of it, Phebe."

"I never felt it as I do now," she answered.

"Because you have kept yourself free from earthly ties," said Felicita
mournfully; "you have neither husband nor child to increase your power
of suffering a hundred-fold. I am entering upon another term of
tribulation in Felix and Hilda. If I had only been like you, dear Phebe,
I could have passed through life as happily as you do; but my life has
never belonged to myself; it has been forced to run in channels made by
others."

Somewhere in the house behind them a door was left open accidentally,
and the sound of Hilda's piano and of voices singing broke in upon the
quiet studio. Phebe listened to them, and thought of the desolate,
broken-hearted man without, who was listening too. The clear young
voices of their children fell upon his ears as upon Felicita's; so near
they were to one another, yet so far apart. She shivered and drew