ength to live with him and keep my faith. I should be
drawn by him earthward instead of drawing him heavenward; and so this is
in mercy to us both."

"And are you telling him the whole truth, Mara?"

"Not all, no," said Mara; "he could not bear it at once. I only tell him
that my health is failing, and that my friends are seriously alarmed,
and then I speak as if it were doubtful, in my mind, what the result
might be."

"I don't think you can make him feel as you do. Moses Pennel has a
tremendous will, and he never yielded to any one. You bend, Mara, like
the little blue harebells, and so the storm goes over you; but he will
stand up against it, and it will wrench and shatter him. I am afraid,
instead of making him better, it will only make him bitter and
rebellious."

"He has a Father in heaven who knows how to care for him," said Mara. "I
am persuaded--I feel certain that he will be blessed in the end; not
perhaps in the time and way I should have chosen, but in the end. I have
always felt that he was mine, ever since he came a little shipwrecked
boy to me--a little girl. And now I have given him up to his Saviour and
my Saviour--to his God and my God--and I am perfectly at peace. All will
be well."

Mara spoke with a look of such solemn, bright assurance as made her, in
the dusky, golden twilight, seem like some serene angel sent down to
comfort, rather than a hapless mortal just wrenched from life and hope.

Sally rose up and kissed her silently. "Mara," she said, "I shall come
to-morrow to see what I can do for you. I will not interrupt you now.
Good-by, dear."

* * * * *

There are no doubt many, who have followed this history so long as it
danced like a gay little boat over sunny waters, and who would have
followed it gayly to the end, had it closed with ringing of
marriage-bells, who turn from it indignantly, when they see that its
course runs through the dark valley. This, they say, is an imposition, a
trick upon our feelings. We want to read only stories which end in joy
and prosperity.

But have we then settled it in our own mind that there is no such thing
as a fortunate issue in a history which does not terminate in the way of
earthly success and good fortune? Are we Christians or heathen? It is
now eighteen centuries since, as we hold, the "highly favored among
women" was pronounced to be one whose earthly hopes were all cut off in
the blossom,--whose noblest and