am was
setting the breakfast-table -- Could breakfast be eaten or not?
The very cups and saucers made Elizabeth's heart ache. She was
glad when Clam had done her work and was gone and she sat
waiting alone. But the breaths came painfully now, and her
heart was weary with its own aching.

The little knock at the door came at last. Elizabeth ran to
open it, and exchanged a silent grasp of the hand with the
newsbearer; her eyes looked her question. He came in just as
he came last night; calm and grave.

"I can tell you nothing new, Miss Elizabeth," he said. "I
cannot see that Mr. Haye is any better -- I do not know that he
is any worse."

But Elizabeth was weak to bear longer suspense; she burst into
tears and sat down hiding her face. Her companion stood near,
but said nothing further.

"May I call Clam?" he asked after a few minutes.

Elizabeth gave eager assent; and the act of last night was
repeated, to her unspeakable gratification. She drank in every
word, and not only because she drank in the voice with them.

"Breakfast's just ready, Mr. Winthrop," said Clam when she was
leaving the room; -- "so you needn't go up stairs."

The breakfast was a very silent one on Elizabeth's part.
Winthrop talked on indifferent subjects; but she was too full-
hearted and too sick-hearted to answer him with many words.
And when the short meal was ended and he was about quitting
the parlour she jumped up and followed him a step or two.

"Mr. Winthrop -- won't you say a word of comfort to me before
you go? --"

He saw she needed it exceedingly; and came back and sat down
on the sofa with her.

"I don't know what to say to you better than this, Miss
Elizabeth," he said, turning over again the leaves of his
little bible; -- "I came to it in the course of my reading this
morning; and it comforted me."

He put the book in her hands, but Elizabeth had to clear her
eyes more than once from hot tears, before she could read the
words to which he directed her.

"And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime
from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert
from storm and from rain."

Elizabeth looked at it.

"But I don't understand it, Mr. Landholm?" she said, raising
her eyes to his face.

He said nothing; he took the book from her and turning a few
leaves over, put it again in her hands. Elizabeth read; --

"And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a
covert from the tempest