l over
now. The pain and weariness; the constant striving after the true and
beautiful; the daily self-renunciation; the life so completely devoted
to the service of others; and the last lingering notes of the grand,
sweet song had been sung in silence and alone. "Goodness and mercy
have followed me all the days of my life," she had remarked to Aunt
Debby not so long ago, "and, thank God, even in the darkest night I
have never failed to find a star brightening through the gloom." Now
the earthly shadows were done with for ever; the bleeding feet had trod
the last steps of the thorny way, and entered by the gate into the holy
Jerusalem, where "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for
them that love him."

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCLUSION.

Six summers has the green grass waved and sweet flowers bloomed over
Aunt Judith's grave; six long, long years have come and gone since Miss
Deborah entered that silent room and found the death-angel casting his
dread shadow there. And what have the seasons brought? Ease to the
sorrowing heart and laughter to the weeping eyes. "Time heals all
wounds; one cannot mourn for ever," say the wise people, and in nine
cases out of ten their words hold good, though I think there are some
sorrows which no lapse of time can cure--sorrows which deepen and
intensify as the years roll on; only the wound, bleeding inwardly, is
hid with a sacred reverence from the gaze of the outside world, and is
known to the sore-stricken heart alone.

Be that as it may, however, Miss Latimer's friends could afford to
laugh and smile now, and joy as she had done in God's beautiful
sunshine. The earth is still as fair, the skies as blue as they were
in the bygone days when her quiet voice drew the thoughts of those
around her to the nature-world with all its wondrous beauty, and each
can say with glad accord,--

"Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod,
Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give;
The world is very lovely. Oh, my God,
I thank thee that I live."

Let us take one more look at them ere we close the book and lay it
aside reverently and tenderly as we would the folded page in a closing
life.

It is a cold, wintry evening. Outside the wind is sweeping up and down
the streets, wailing like a soul in pain. The rain is dashing against
the windowpanes, and beating with wild, ungovernable fury on those