murmured, "Thank you!"

The breakfast things had, by this time, been taken away, and Meta,
looking to see that the door had shut for the last time, said, in a low
voice, "Now tell me--"

Dr. May drew her down to sit on the sofa beside him, and, in his soft,
sweet voice, told her all that she wished to learn of her father's last
hours, and was glad to see showers of quiet, wholesome tears drop freely
down, but without violence, and she scarcely attempted to speak. There
was a pause at the end, and then she said gently, "Thank you, for it
all. Dear papa!" And she rose up, and went back to her room.

"She has learned to dwell apart," said Dr. May, much moved.

"How beautiful she bears up!" said Ethel.

"It has been a life which, as she has used it, has taught her strength
and self-dependence in the midst of prosperity."

"Yes," said Ethel, "she has trained herself by her dread of
self-indulgence, and seeking after work. But oh! what a break up it is
for her! I cannot think how she holds up. Shall I go to her?"

"I think not. She knows the way to the only Comforter. I am not afraid
of her after those blessed tears."

Dr. May was right; Meta presently returned to them, in the same gentle
subdued sadness, enfolding her, indeed, as a flower weighed down by
mist, but not crushing nor taking away her powers. It was as if she were
truly upheld; and thankful to her friends as she was, she did not throw
herself on them in utter dependence or self-abandonment.

She wrote needful letters, shedding many tears over them, and often
obliged to leave off to give the blinding weeping its course, but
refusing to impose any unnecessary task upon Dr. May's lame arm. All
that was right, she strove to do; she saw Mr. Charles Wilmot, and
was refreshed by his reading to her; and when Dr. May desired it, she
submissively put on her bonnet, and took several turns with Ethel in the
shrubbery, though it made her cry heartily to look into the downstairs
rooms. And she lay on the sofa at last, owning herself strangely tired,
she did not know why, and glad that Ethel should read to her. By and by,
she went to dress for the evening, and came back, full of the tidings
that one of the children in the village had been badly burned. It
occupied her very much--she made Ethel promise to go and see about her
to-morrow, and sent Bellairs at once with every comfort that she could
devise.

On the whole, those two days were to Ethel a peaceful and comfor