re at home with Linnet than I am with
her. She has changed; she keeps within herself."

"Then you must bring her out."

"How can she care, if she thinks I have trifled with her?"

"I didn't say she thought so, I said _I_ thought so!"

"You have hastened this very much. I wanted her to know me and trust me.
I want my wife to love me, Mrs. West."

"No doubt of that, Master Hollis," with a sigh of congratulation to
herself. "All you have to do is to tell her what you have told me. She
will throw you off."

"Has she _said_ so?" he inquired eagerly.

"Do you think she is the girl to say so?"

"I am sure not," he answered proudly.

"Hollis, this is a great relief," said Marjorie's mother.

"Well, good-bye," he said, after hesitating a moment with his eyes on the
kitchen floor, and extending his hand. "I will speak to her when I come
back."

"The Lord bless you," she answered fervently.

Just then Marjorie ran lightly down-stairs singing a morning hymn,
entering the kitchen as he closed the door and went out.

"Hollis just went," said her mother.

"Why didn't he stay to breakfast?" she asked, without embarrassment.

"He had to meet his friends early," replied her mother, averting her face
and busying herself at the sink.

"He will have to eat breakfast somewhere; but perhaps he expects to take
a late breakfast on the fish he has caught. Mother, Linnet and I are to
be little girls, and go berrying."

"Only be happy, children; that's all I want," returned Mrs. West, her
voice breaking.

While Marjorie fried the fish for breakfast her mother went to her
chamber to kneel down and give thanks.

XXVII.

ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALK.

"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_.

Marjorie was so happy that she trembled with the joy of it. The relief
from her burden, at times, was almost harder to bear than the burden
itself. She sang all day hymns that were the outpouring of her soul in
love to Christ.

"What a child you are, Marjorie," her mother said one day. "You were as
doleful as you could be, and now you are as happy as a bird."

"Do you remember what Luther says?"

"Luther says several wise and good things."

"And this is one of them; it is one of Aunt Prue's favorite sayings: 'The
Christian should be like a little bird, which sits on its twig and sings,
and lets God think for it.'"

"That's all very well for a bird; but we have to _do_," replied her
mother sharply.