ing into the gulf of
religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation.

Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have
felt thus forsaken--when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen
the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within
them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which
precedes the rise of day--that turn of the year when the icy January
wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter and
the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus
understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the
suffering soul recognize, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of
its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and
faith in God. God will never deceive, never finally desert him. "Whom He
loveth, He chasteneth." These words are true, and should not be
forgotten.

The household was astir at last; the servants were up; the shutters were
opened below. Caroline, as she quitted the couch, which had been but a
thorny one to her, felt that revival of spirits which the return of day,
of action, gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying. She
dressed herself, as usual, carefully, trying so to arrange her hair and
attire that nothing of the forlornness she felt at heart should be
visible externally. She looked as fresh as Shirley when both were
dressed, only that Miss Keeldar's eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's
languid.

"To-day I shall have much to say to Moore," were Shirley's first words;
and you could see in her face that life was full of interest,
expectation, and occupation for her. "He will have to undergo
cross-examination," she added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me
cleverly. And this is the way men deal with women--still concealing
danger from them--thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. They
imagined we little knew where they were to-night. We _know_ they little
conjectured where we were. Men, I believe, fancy women's minds something
like those of children. Now, that is a mistake."

This was said as she stood at the glass, training her naturally waved
hair into curls, by twining it round her fingers. She took up the theme
again five minutes after, as Caroline fastened her dress and clasped her
girdle.

"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed;
but the cleverest, the acutest men are