ence over our cup of tea. I did not think it necessary to say this
difference was a forced one. Some things we are perfectly justified in
keeping to ourselves.) "She remembers a certain verse in the New
Testament one way and I in another. We had not time to settle it by a
consultation with the sacred word, but I cannot rest till it is settled,
so will you bring your Bible to me, my dear, that I may look that verse
up?"

We were in the upper hall, where I had taken a seat on the old-fashioned
sofa there. Lucetta, who was standing before me, started immediately to
do my bidding, without stopping to think, poor child, that it was very
strange I did not go to my own room and consult my own Bible as any good
Presbyterian would be expected to do. As she was turning toward the
large front room I stopped her with the quiet injunction:

"Get me one with good print, Lucetta. My eyes won't bear much
straining."

At which she turned and to my great relief hurried down the corridor
toward William's room, from which she presently returned, bringing the
very volume I was anxious to consult.

Meanwhile I had laid aside my hat. I felt flurried and unhappy, and
showed it. Lucetta's pitiful face had a strange sweetness in it this
morning, and I felt sure as I took the sacred book from her hand that
her thoughts were all with the lover she had sent from her side and not
at all with me or with what at the moment occupied me. Yet my thoughts
at this moment involved, without doubt, the very deepest interests of
her life, if not that very lover she was brooding over in her darkened
and resigned mind. As I realized this I heaved an involuntary sigh,
which seemed to startle her, for she turned and gave me a quick look as
she was slipping away to join her sister, who was busy at the other end
of the hall.

The Bible I held was an old one, of medium size and most excellent
print. I had no difficulty in finding the text and settling the question
which had been my ostensible reason for wanting the book, but it took me
longer to discover the indentation which I had made in one of its pages;
but when I did, you may imagine my awe and the turmoil into which my
mind was cast, when I found that it marked those great verses in
Corinthians which are so universally read at funerals:

"Behold I shew you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed."

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye----"

XXVIII

AN INTRUSION