, you're mistaken, that's all. I don't
believe there's one person in the world that would go farther or do more
to save Mara Pennel than I would,--and yet I've been in the world long
enough to see that livin' ain't no great shakes neither. Ef one is
hopefully prepared in the days of their youth, why they escape a good
deal, ef they get took cross-lots into heaven."

Sally turned away thoughtfully into the house; there was no one in the
kitchen, and the tick of the old clock sounded lonely and sepulchral.
She went upstairs to Mara's room; the door was ajar. Mara was sitting at
the open window that looked forth toward the ocean, busily engaged in
writing. The glow of evening shone on the golden waves of her hair, and
tinged the pearly outline of her cheek. Sally noticed the translucent
clearness of her complexion, and the deep burning color and the
transparency of the little hands, which seemed as if they might transmit
the light like Sevres porcelain. She was writing with an expression of
tender calm, and sometimes stopping to consult an open letter that Sally
knew came from Moses.

So fair and sweet and serene she looked that a painter might have chosen
her for an embodiment of twilight, and one might not be surprised to see
a clear star shining out over her forehead. Yet in the tender serenity
of the face there dwelt a pathos of expression that spoke of struggles
and sufferings past, like the traces of tears on the face of a restful
infant that has grieved itself to sleep.

Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around her, and kissed
her, with a half laugh, then bursting into tears, sobbed upon her
shoulder.

"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up.

"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"--

Sally only sobbed passionately.

"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," said Mara, in a
soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. "You don't know how much I have
suffered dreading it. Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect
and dread and fear. My time of anguish was then--then when I first felt
that it could be possible that I should not live after all. There was a
long time I dared not even think of it; I could not even tell such a
fear to myself; and I did far more than I felt able to do to convince
myself that I was not weak and failing. I have been often to Miss Roxy,
and once, when nobody knew it, I went to a doctor in Brunswick, but then
I was afraid to tell hi