he two girls met no living soul on their way back to the rectory. They
let themselves in noiselessly; they stole upstairs unheard--the breaking
morning gave them what light they needed. Shirley sought her couch
immediately; and though the room was strange--for she had never slept at
the rectory before--and though the recent scene was one unparalleled for
excitement and terror by any it had hitherto been her lot to witness,
yet scarce was her head laid on the pillow ere a deep, refreshing sleep
closed her eyes and calmed her senses.

Perfect health was Shirley's enviable portion. Though warm-hearted and
sympathetic, she was not nervous; powerful emotions could rouse and sway
without exhausting her spirit. The tempest troubled and shook her while
it lasted, but it left her elasticity unbent, and her freshness quite
unblighted. As every day brought her stimulating emotion, so every night
yielded her recreating rest. Caroline now watched her sleeping, and read
the serenity of her mind in the beauty of her happy countenance.

For herself, being of a different temperament, she could not sleep. The
commonplace excitement of the tea-drinking and school-gathering would
alone have sufficed to make her restless all night; the effect of the
terrible drama which had just been enacted before her eyes was not
likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a
recumbent posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow
minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens.

Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late but too often
kept--vigils during which the mind, having no pleasant food to nourish
it, no manna of hope, no hived-honey of joyous memories, tries to live
on the meagre diet of wishes, and failing to derive thence either
delight or support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving
want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation; calls on all
these gods for aid, calls vainly--is unheard, unhelped, and languishes.

Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed many a prayer
after the Christian creed, preferred it with deep earnestness, begged
for patience, strength, relief. This world, however, we all know, is the
scene of trial and probation; and, for any favourable result her
petitions had yet wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and
unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from
her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sink