are completely in
his hands now, Miriam--we must watch our opportunity--"

"I do not see that," I interrupted; "less now than ever, it seems to me.
What more can he do for or against us now? Our property is all
gone--except this house, plate, and furniture, and my mother's
diamonds--all of winch are tangible and visible, and in our own
possession. We have no debts--you pay house-bills monthly, and I,
fortunately, have just settled off every account I have in the world,
and have five hundred Spanish dollars to start anew with--my savings
during papa's lifetime. I hoarded it, fortunately, in this form for a
missionary purpose you remember, Evelyn, but afterward changed my mind."

"Yes, I remember; merely because the person it was intended for prayed
that the Jews might finally be exterminated."

"Was not that enough, Evelyn? The man who could utter such a prayer was
no Christian, and unfit for religious teaching. Since then I have come
to the conclusion that there is a great deal of undue and very
impertinent meddling with the heathen; who are entitled to their own
mode of worship as well as of government, and who I think are not yet
ripe for Christianity."

"You have strange notions, Miriam; you talk like an old French
philosopher."

"I never knew there was such a thing--a French sophist I am afraid you
mean. No, I am not a sophist, Evelyn; any thing else than that! I wish
sometimes I did not see so clearly. I love, I idolize the truth alone!"

She colored--sighed. God knows I was not thinking of her at that moment,
or speaking with that reference, however I may have had reason to do so.

Is it not strange that our dreams often present to us, in our own
despite, the vivid, photographic pictures struck by sleep from the dim,
unconscious negative of our waking judgment, which we refuse to
recognize as verities in the light of our open-eyed, daytime
responsibility? I, who had declared myself no sophist, knew later that I
had deceived my own heart, which spoke out so truthfully in dreams of
sleep, and refused to be silenced in the dead hour of night, however I
might stifle its suggestions by day.

In one of these suggestive, or rather reflected, visions, I saw Evelyn
groping through darkness to the side-gate which gave into the grounds of
Mr. Bainrothe from our own, made years before by my father's permission
for the convenience of his friend; the night was a dark and stormy one,
yet she went forth alone, or seemed