"Will nothing but a miracle do, Miss Daisy?"

The tone was so gentle and so quietly blended itself with my musings, that I started and smiled.

"Oh, yes," I said; - "I do not suppose I want a miracle."

"Can a friend's counsel be of any use?"

"It might - of the greatest," I answered; - "if only I could tell you all the circumstances."

"Before we go to that, how has it fared with my little friend of old time, all these years?"

"How has it fared with me?" - I repeated in doubt.

"There is only one sort of welfare I know," he said. "It is not strength to the body, or gold to the purse. I am 'well' only when God's favour is shining on me and I am strong to run the way of His commandments."

"I am not strong," I said.

"You know I do not mean my own strength, or yours," he answered.

"I have never forgotten what you used to tell me," I said.

"Good. And yet, Miss Daisy, I would rather you could tell me you had forgotten it; that you had gone on so far from that beginning as to have lost it out of view."

"Ah, but I have not had so many friends to teach me, and help me, that I could afford to forget the first one," I said. "I have one dear old friend who thinks as you do, - and that is all; and I cannot see her now."

" 'If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him,' " Mr. Dinwiddie said.

"I lack wisdom, very much; but it does not seem to come, even though I ask for it. I am sometimes in a great puzzle."

"About what to do?"

"Yes."

"You can always find out the first step to be taken. Jesus will be followed step by step. He will not show you but one step at a time, very often. But take that, holding His hand, and He will show you the next."

"So I came here," I said.

"And what is the work to be done here? on yourself, or on somebody else?"

"I do not know," I said. "I had not thought it was either. Perhaps I am learning."

He was silent then, and I sat thinking.

"Mr. Dinwiddie," I said, "maybe you can help me."

"I will gladly, if I can."

"But it is very difficult for me to put you in possession of the circumstances - or in the atmosphere of the circumstances. I do not know that I can. You know that papa and mamma do not think with me on the subject of religion?"

"Yes."

"There are other things in which I think differently from them - other things in which we feel apart; and they do not know it. Ought I to let them know it?"

"Your question is as enigmatical as an ancient oracle. I must have a little more light. Do these differences of feeling or opinion touch action? - either yours or theirs?"

"Yes, - both."

"Then, unless your minds are known to each other, will there not be danger of mistaken action, on the one part or on the other?"

"Telling them would not prevent that danger," I said.

"They would disregard your views, or you would disregard theirs, - which?"

"I must not disregard theirs," I said low.

Mr. Dinwiddie was silent awhile. I had a sort of cry in my heart for the old dividing of the waters.

"Miss Daisy," he said, "there is one sure rule. Do right; and let consequences break us to pieces, if needs be."

"But," said I doubtfully, "I had questioned what was right; at least I had not been certain that I ought to do anything just now."

"Of course I am speaking in the dark," he answered. "But you can judge whether this matter of division is something that in your father's place you would feel you had a right to know."

I mused so long after this speech, that I am sure Mr. Dinwiddie must have felt that he had touched my difficulty. He was perfectly silent. At last I rose up to go home. I do not know what Mr. Dinwiddie saw in me, but he stopped me and took my hand.

"Can't you trust the Lord?" he said.

"I see trouble before me, whatever I do," I said with some difficulty.

"Very well," he said; "even so, trust the Lord. The trouble will do you no harm."

I sat down for a moment and covered my face. It might do me no harm; it might at the same time separate me from what I loved best in the world.

"Cannot you trust?" he repeated. " 'He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat.' "

"You know," I said, getting up, "one cannot help being weak."

"Will you excuse me? - That is precisely what we can help. We cannot help being ignorant sometimes, - foolish sometimes, - short-sighted. But weak we need not be; for 'in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength;' and 'he giveth power to the faint.' "

"But there is no perfection, Mr. Dinwiddie."

"Not if by perfection you mean, standing alone. But if the power that holds us up is perfect, - what should hinder our having a fulness of that? 'If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.' Isn't that promise good for all we want to ask?"

I sat down again to think. Mr. Dinwiddie quietly took his place by my side; and we were still for a good while. The plains of Jericho and the Jordan and the Moab mountains and the Quarantania, all seemed to have new voices for me now; voices full of balm; messages of soft-healing. I do think the messages God sends to us by natural things are some of the sweetest and mightiest and best understood of all. They come home.

"Do you think," I asked, after a long silence, "that this mountain was really the scene of the Temptation?"

"Why should we think so? No, I do not think it."

"But the road from Jericho to Jerusalem - there is no doubt of that?"

"No doubt at all. We are often sure of the roads here, when we are sure of little else."

There was a pause; and then Mr. Dinwiddie broke it.

"You left things in confusion at home. How do you feel about that?"

"At home in America?" I said. "I do not feel about it as my parents do."

"You side with the North!"

"I have lived there so much. I know the view taken there; and it seems to me the right one. And I have lived at the South too; and I do not like the view held there, - nor the practice followed."

"There are some things I can fancy you would not like," he said musingly. "I have not known what to think. It seems to me they have made a false move. But it seems to me they must succeed."

"I don't know," I said. "Perhaps."

He looked at me a little hard, and then we left the hermits' caves and went down the plain to our encampment.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FORLORN HOPE

The spot where our tents were pitched commands a view, I think one of the loveliest in the world. Perhaps with me association has something to do with the feeling. That broad sweep of the plains of Jericho, bright with their groves of Zizyphus trees; the lake waters coming in at the south; the great line of the Moab horizon, and the heights of the western shore; and then the constant changes which the light makes in revealing all these; I found it a study of beauty, from the morning till the night. From the time when the sun rose over the Moab mountains and brightened our dm trees and kissed our spring, to the evening when the shadow of Quarantania stretched over all our neighbourhood, as it stretched over Jericho of old, and the distant hills and waters and thickets glowed in colours and lights of their own.

The next morning after my walk I was up early, and going a little way from my tent door, I sat down to enjoy it. The servants were but just stirring; my father and Mr. Dinwiddie safe within their canvas curtains. It was very nice to be alone, for I wanted to think. The air was deliciously balmy and soft; another fair day had risen upon us in that region of tropical summer; the breath of the air was peace. Or was it the speech of the past? It is difficult to disentangle things sometimes. I had troublesome matters to think about, yet somehow I was not troubled. I did not lay hold of trouble, all the while I was in Palestine. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had revealed to me that it might be my duty to tell my father all that was in my heart. Suspicions of the fact, only, had crossed my thought before; but "as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." I saw more clearly. And the longer I sat there on my stone looking over to the line of the Jordan and to the hills through which the armies of Israel had once come down to cross it, the clearer it grew to my mind, that the difficulty before me was one to be faced, not evaded. I saw that papa had a right to know my affairs, and that he would think it became me as a Christian not to make a mystery of them. I saw I must tell papa about myself. And yet, it did not appal me, as the idea had often appalled me. I was hardly afraid. At any rate, there before me the hosts of the Israelites had passed over dry shod; though the river was swift and strong; and the appeal of Elisha, - "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" - came home to my ear like a blast of the priests' silver trumpets. I felt two hands on my shoulders.

"Studying it all, Daisy?"

"Papa, I am never tired of studying."

"This is a wonderful place."

"Papa, you know little about it yet. Old Jericho was up there."

"You speak as if I had gone to school in 'old Jericho,' " said my father, laughing. "I have the vaguest idea, Daisy, that such a city existed. That is all."

"Sit down, papa, while breakfast is getting ready, and let me mend your knowledge."

So we read the story there, on the stone by the spring. Mr. Dinwiddie joined us; and it was presently decided that we should spend the morning in examining the ground in our neighbourhood and the old sites of what had passed away. So after breakfast we sat out upon a walk over the territory of old Jericho.

"But it is strange," said papa, "if the city was here, that there are no architectural remains to testify as much."

"We rarely find them, sir, but in connection with Roman or Saracenic work. Shapeless mounds, and broken pottery, as you have it here, are all that generally mark our Palestine ruins."

"But Herod?" said papa. "He was a builder."

"Herod's Jericho was a mile and a half away, to the east. And moreover, if anything had been remaining here that could be made of use, the Saracens or Crusaders would have pulled it to pieces to help make their sugar mills up yonder, or their aqueducts."

"There is no sugar cane here now?"

"Not a trace of it. Nor a palm tree; though Jericho was a city of palms; nor a root of the balsam, though great gain was derived to Judea in ancient times from the balsam gardens here."

We mounted our horses and rode down to the site of Herod's Jericho, on the banks of the little stream that issues from the gorge of the Wady Kelt. How lovely, and how desolate, it was. The stream overhung with trees and bordered with oleanders and shrubs of which I have forgotten the names, and crossed by old arches still; and around, the desolate tokens of what once was. Foundation lines, and ruined aqueducts. Mr. Dinwiddie made us remark the pavement of the road leading up to the Kelt, the old road to Jerusalem, the road by which Jesus went when the blind men called him, and over which, somewhere on its way, stretched the sycamore tree into which Zaccheus climbed. Ah how barren and empty the way looked now! - with Him no longer here. For a moment, so looked my own path before me, - the dusty, hot road; the desolate pass; the barren mountain top. It was only a freak of fancy; I do not know what brought it. I had not felt so a moment before, and I did not a moment after.

"Where His feet lead now, the green pastures are not wanting, -" Mr. Dinwiddie said; I suppose reading my look.

"Never, Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"Never!"

"But it seems, often, to people, that they are wanting."

"Their eyes are so blinded by tears that they cannot see them, sometimes. Even then, they can lie down and feel them, - feel that they are in them."

"Are there any sycamore trees here now?" my father asked.

"Two or three poor old specimens; just enough to show for the story. Those sycamore figs belong to the low and warm situations; this is the proper place for them."

Papa felt so well that we determined to push on to the Jordan. It was a hot, long ride, over a shadeless and barren plain; and when we came to the river papa declared himself very much disappointed. But I was not. Narrow and muddy as the stream was, it was also powerful in its rapid flood; no one could venture to bathe in it. The river was much swollen and had been yet more so; the tracks of wild animals which the floods had disturbed were everywhere to be seen. Papa and Mr. Dinwiddie reasoned and argued, while I sat and meditated; in a deep delight that I should see the Jordan at all. We took a long rest there, on its banks. The jungle was a delicious study to me, and when the deep talk of the gentlemen subsided enough to give me a chance, I got Mr. Dinwiddie to enlighten me as to the names and qualities of the various trees and plants. They were of fine luxuriant growth. Poplars and sycamores and other trees, willows, I think, and exquisite tamarisks in blossom; and what I specially admired, the canes. I understood then how people might go into the plain to see "a reed shaken with the wind." Growing twelve to fifteen feet high, with graceful tufts of feathery bloom which they bow and sway to the breeze in a manner lovely to see.

Another day we rode down to the shore of the Dead Sea; papa being none the worse for his Jordan excursion. Then the rain visited us, and for two or three days we were kept in our tents. With some difficulty I then persuaded papa to go further south, to the shore of the Dead Sea, to some pleasant camping ground by one of its western springs; there rain falls almost never. So, first at Ain Feshkah and then at Ain Jidi, we spent another couple of weeks; without Mr. Dinwiddie it would have been impossible, but his society kept papa from wearying and made everything as enjoyable as could be to both of us. It was the middle of February when we returned to Jerusalem.

The rainy season was not of course at an end yet; but a change of beauty had come over the land. We found fruit trees in blossom, almond and peach; and apricots just ready to bloom. Corn up and green; and flowers coming and come. I had my own plans, made up from the experience and counsels of my English friends; but papa wanted to see Jerusalem, and I waited. Of course I wanted to see Jerusalem too; and here again Mr. Dinwiddie was our excellent friend and guide and instructor. Papa was quite in earnest now; and went about the city examining walls and churches and rock-tombs and all the environs, with a diligent intentness almost equal to mine; and he and Mr. Dinwiddie had endless talks and discussions, while I mused. The words, "Constantine," "Byzantine," "Crusaders," "Helena", "Saracenic," "Herod," "Josephus;" with modern names almost as well known; echoed and re-echoed in my ears.

"Daisy!" said papa suddenly in one of these talks, - "Daisy! you are not interested in this."

"Papa, it is so uncertain."

Mr. Dinwiddie laughed.

"But the question, child; don't you care about the question? how is it ever to be made certain? I thought this question would engage all your attention."

"How can it ever be made certain, papa? After those hundred and fifty years when there were no Jews allowed here, who was to remember the spot of the Sepulchre? Few but Christians knew it, in the first place."

"Oh, you have thought about it!" said papa. "But are you not interested in a probable site, Daisy?"

"No, papa."

"All these old churches and relics then do not concern you?"

"Papa, I only go to see them for your sake."

"Well," said papa, "now I will go to the Mount of Olives for your sake."

That was my plan; following the advice of the English party, who said they had enjoyed it. We hired for a time a little stone dwelling on the Mount of Olives, from which we had a fine view of the city; and to this new home papa and I moved, and took up our quarters in it. Of all my days in the Holy Land, excepting perhaps the time spent at Jericho and Engedi, these days were the best. They are like a jewel of treasure in my memory.

The little dwelling to which we had come was rougher in accommodation than our tents; but the season was still early, and it gave better shelter to papa. It was a rude stone house, with a few small rooms at our service; which I soon made comfortable with carpets and cushions. The flat roof above gave us a delightful view of the country and abundant chance to examine and watch all its points and aspects. I spent the hours up here or at the window of our little sitting-room; using my eyes all the time, to take in and feast upon what was before them. Only when papa would go out with me, I left my post; to take up the survey from some new point of view. I had a great deal to think of, those days; a certain crisis in my life had come, or was coming; I was facing it and getting ready for it; and thinking and looking seemed to help and stimulate each other. It was wonderful to watch the lights change on Jerusalem; from the first sunbeam that came over the hills of Moab and touched the city, to the full glare of the midday, and then the sunset colours on land and rock and building, transforming the dull greys and whites with a flush of rosy beauty and purple splendour. The tints that hovered then upon the red hills of Moab were never to be forgotten. I watched it, this change of light and shade and colour, from day to day. I learned to know Jerusalem and her surrounding hills and her enclosing valleys; and the barrier wall of Moab became a familiar line to me. All this while, as I said, I had a great deal to think of, and was thinking. Past, present and future chased each other in and out of my head; or rather, it seems to me, dwelt there together.

"Daisy!" - papa called to me when I was on the roof one day. I ran down.

"What are you doing up there?"

"I was looking, papa. I was studying topography."

"Let us go out and study it a little by actual survey. I think a walk would do me good."

We went down first to the valley of the Kedron, and wandered about there; sometimes sitting down under the shade of the olive trees to rest; speculating upon localities, recalling scenes of history; wondering at the path which descends into the valley from St. Stephen's gate and goes on over the Mount of Olives to Bethany. Above all things, that path held my eyes. No doubt the real path that was travelled eighteen centuries ago lay deep beneath many feet of piled-up rubbish; but the rubbish itself told a tale; and the path was there. After a long stay in the valley, we mounted the hill again, where our temporary home was; and passing that, went on to the height of the hill. There we sat down. The westering sun was casting lines of light all over the landscape, which would be soon floods of colour. Papa and I sat down to look and wait.

"It certainly is worth coming for," said papa. "Our journey realises more than all I had hoped from it, Daisy."

"I am so glad, papa!"

"But you, Daisy, how is it with you? You seem to me a little, and not a little, distraite."

"I have so much to think of, papa."

"More than I have?"

"Why, yes, papa," I said, half laughing. "I think so."

"You must have fields of speculation unknown to me, Daisy."

"Yes, papa. Some time I want to talk to you about them."

"Isn't now a good time?" said papa, carelessly.

I was silent a while, thinking how to begin. It was a good time, I knew, and I dared not let it pass. I had been waiting till Mr. Dinwiddie should have left us and papa and I be quite alone; and he was to join us again as soon as we started on our northward journey. Now was my best opportunity. All the more, for knowing that, my heart beat.

"Papa," I began, "may I ask you a few questions, the better to come at what I want?"

"Certainly. Your questions, Daisy, I have always found stimulating."

"Then first, what is it you think of most, in looking over from this place to Jerusalem?"

"Of course," said papa, rousing himself, "the prominent thought must be the wonderful scene that was acted there eighteen hundred years ago; not the course of history before or after. Is that what you mean?"

"I mean that, papa. I mean the death of Christ. Papa, what was that for?"

"Why, as I understand it, Daisy, it was a satisfaction to the justice of God for the sins of the world. Are you going to put me through a course of theology, Daisy?"

"No, papa. But do you think it was for all the world, or only for a part of them?"

"For all, of course. The Bible words I take to be quite clear on that point, even if it were possible that it should have been otherwise."

"Then it was for you and me, papa?"

"Yes."

"And for those ignorant Moslems that live in the city now?"

"Yes, of course it was; though I think they will not have much good of it, Daisy."

"Never mind that, papa. Then it was for my old June, and for Maria and Darry and Pete and Margaret, and all the rest of our people at Magnolia?"

"Yes," said papa, rousing up a little. I did not look at him.

"Papa, don't you think the Lord Jesus loves the people for whom He died?"

"Certainly. It is inconceivable that He should have died for them if He did not love them. Though that is also a great mystery to me, Daisy."

"Papa, don't you think that, having died for them, He holds them precious?"

"I suppose so," said papa slowly.

"Every one?"

"Yes."

"Do you think He loves one man less than another because his skin is darker?"

"Certainly not, Daisy."

"Then papa - should we?"

"I do not know that we do," papa said, after a pause.

"Papa, think. What would you say to our, or anybody's, holding white men in slavery - making them work without wages - and forcing them to obey under the lash?"

"They are an inferior race, Daisy," papa answered again after a pause. His voice showed he did not enjoy the conversation; but it was needful for me to go on.

"Papa, they have been kept down. But suppose they were inferior, - since Christ died for them, does He not love them?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"Then, papa, what will He say to us, for keeping those whom He loves and died for, at arms' length or under our feet? and what will He say to us for keeping them out of the good He died to give them?"

"We do not, Daisy! They have their religious privileges."

"Papa, I have lived among them as you never did. They may not meet together to pray, on pain of the lash. They cannot have Bibles, for they are not allowed to read. They have no family life; for husbands and wives and parents and children are parted and torn from each other at the will or for the interest of their owners. They live like the animals."

"Not on my estates!" said papa, rousing himself again. "There is no selling and buying of the people there."

"Pete's wife was forcibly taken from him, papa, and then sent South."

"By whom?"

"By Edwards. And the rest of the hands were in mortal fear of him; utterly cowed. They dared not move without his pleasure."

"Abuses," papa muttered; - "nothing to do with the system."

"What must the system be where such things are possible? where one such thing is possible? And oh, papa, they suffer! there is no such thing as real comfort of life; there is no scope or liberty for the smallest upward tendency. Nothing is their own, not their own time; they have no chance to be anything but inferior."

"They have all the essentials of comfortable living, and they are comfortable," said my father.

"Papa, they do not think so."

"Few people do think so," said papa. "It is a vice of humanity."

I was silent a little bit, and then I ventured to say, -

"Papa, the Lord Jesus loved them well enough to die for them."

"Well," said papa, rather growlingly, "what then?"

"I am thinking, what will He say to us for handling them so."

"What would you do for them, Daisy?"

"All I could, papa," I said softly.

"How much could you, do you suppose?"

"Papa, I would not stop as long as there was anything more to be done."

"I suppose you would begin by setting them all free?"

"Wouldn't you wish it, papa, for yourself and me, if we were two of them? - and for mamma and Ransom, if they were two more?"

"You are mistaken in thinking it is a parallel case. They do not wish for liberty as we should."

"Then it only shows how much harm the want of liberty has done them already. But they wish for it quite enough, papa; quite enough. It breaks my heart to think how much they do wish for it."

"My child, you do not know what you are talking about!" papa answered; half worried, I thought, and half impatient. "In the first place, they would not be better off if they were set free; though you think they would; and in the second place, do you know how it would affect our own condition?"

"Papa," I said low, - "it has nothing to do with the question. I do not care."

"You would care."

"I care for this other more, papa."

"Daisy, understand. Instead of being well off, you would be poor; you would be poor. The Southern estates would be worth nothing without hands to cultivate them; and my Northern estates will go to your brother."

"I should never be rich in the way you think, papa."

"How so?"

"I would never be rich in that way."

"What would you do?"

"I would be poor."

"It is not so easy to do as to talk about," said my father. "At the present time, Daisy, - I suppose, if you had your will, you would set at liberty at once all the people on the Magnolia plantations?"

"Indeed I would, papa."

"Then we should be reduced to a present nothing. The Melbourne property brings in very little, nothing, in fact, without a master on the spot to manage it. I dare say some trifling rent might be obtained for it; and the sale of Magnolia and its corresponding estates would fetch something if the times admitted of sale. You know it is impossible now. We should have scarce anything to live upon, my child, to satisfy your philanthropy."

"Papa, there was a poor woman once, who was reduced to a handful of meal and a little oil as her whole household store. Yet at the command of the prophet of the Lord, she took some of it to make bread for him, before she fed herself and her child - both of them starving. And the Lord never let her want either meal or oil all the time the famine lasted."

"Miracles do not come for people's help, now-a-days, Daisy."

"Papa, yes! God's ways may change, His ways of doing the same thing; but He does not change. He takes care of His people now without miracles, all the same."

"All the same!" repeated papa. "That is an English expression, that you have caught from your friends."

We were both silent for a while.

"Daisy, my child, your views of all these things will alter by and by. You are young, and have slight experience of the things of life. By and by, you will find it a much more serious thing than you imagine to be without wealth. You would find a great difference between the heiress and the penniless girl; a difference you would not like."

"Papa," I said slowly, - "I hope you will not be displeased or hurt, - but I want it to be known, and I wanted you should know, that I never shall be an heiress. I never will be rich in that way. I will take what God gives me."

"First throwing away what He has given you," said papa.

"I do not think He has given it, papa."

"What then? have we stolen it?"

"Not we; but those who have been before us, papa; they stole it. All we are doing, is keeping that which is not ours."

"Enough too, I should think!" said papa. "You will alter your mind, Daisy, about all this, if you wait a while. What do you think your mother would say to it?"

"I know, papa," I said softly. "But I cannot help thinking of what will be said somewhere else. I would like that you and I, and she too, might have that 'Well done' - which the Lord Jesus will give to some. And when they enter into the joy of their Lord, will they care what His service has cost them?"

My eyes were full of tears, and I could scarcely speak; for I felt that I had gained very little ground, or better no ground at all. What indeed could I have expected to gain? Papa sat still, and I looked over at Jerusalem, where the westing sun was making a bath of sunbeams for the old domes and walls. A sort of promise of glory, which yet touched me exceedingly from its contrast with present condition. Even so of other things, and other places besides Jerusalem. But Melbourne seemed to be in shadow. And Magnolia? -

I wondered what papa would say next, or whether our talk had come to a deadlock then and there. I had a great deal more myself to say; but the present opportunity seemed to be questionable. And then it was gone; for Mr. Dinwiddie mounted the hill and came to take a seat beside us.

"Any news, Mr. Dinwiddie?" was papa's question, as usual.

"From America."

"What sort of news?"

"Confused sort - as the custom is. Skirmishes which amount to nothing, and tell nothing. However, there is a little more this time. Fort Henry has been taken, on the Tennessee river, by Commander Foote and his gunboats."

"Successes cannot always be on one side, of course," remarked my father.

"Roanoke Island has been taken, by the sea and land forces under Burnside and Goldsborough."

"Has it!" - said papa. "Well, - what good will that do them?"

"Strengthen their hearts for continuing the struggle," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "It will do that."

"The struggle cannot last very long," said my father. "They must see sooner or later how hopeless it is."

"Not in the light of these last events," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "What does my other friend here think about it?"

"About what, Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"The length of the struggle."

"Do you think Daisy has some special means of knowledge?" asked my father, carelessly.

"Well - yes," said Mr Dinwiddie. "She has been among Northern friends a good while; perhaps she can judge better of their tone and temper than I can, - or you, sir."

"I cannot hold just the view that you do, Mr. Dinwiddie, - or that papa does."

"So I supposed. You think there are some good soldiers in the Northern army."

"It would be absurd to suppose there are not," said my father; "but what they do want, is a right understanding of the spirit of the South. It is more persistent and obstinate, as well as strong, than the North takes any account of. It will not yield. It will do and endure anything first."

I thought I had heard papa intimate a doubt on that issue; however I said nothing.

"If spirit would save a people," Mr. Dinwiddie rejoined, "those walls over against us would not bear the testimony they do. No people ever fought with more spirit than this people. Yet Jerusalem is a heap of ruins."

"You do not mean that such a fate can overtake the whole South?" said my father.

"I mean, that the race is not always to the swift. The South have right on their side, however."

"Right?" said I.

"I thought that would bring you out," Mr. Dinwiddie said, with a kindly look at me.

"Daisy is an abolitionist," said papa. "Where she got it, is out of my knowledge. But I think, Mr. Dinwiddie, there are minds so constituted that they take of choice that view of things which is practically the most adverse to their own interest."

"Tell papa, Mr. Dinwiddie, that that cannot be."

"What cannot be, if you please?"

"I mean, that which is the right cannot be the wrong in any sense; cannot be even the wrong view for anybody's interest that adopts it."

"Fair theories -" said papa.

"Something else, it must be, papa. There is a promise - 'With what measure ye measure, it shall be measured to you again.' 'Give, and it shall be given unto you; full measure, pressed down, heaped up, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.' "

"Why into my bosom?" said papa. "I would rather it were into my hands, or a basket, or anything."

We went off into a laugh upon that, and Mr. Dinwiddie explained, and the conversation turned. We went into the house to have tea; and there we discussed the subject of our further journey and when we should set off. Mr. Dinwiddie was engaged to go with us to Lebanon. But it was concluded that we would wait yet a little for the season to be further advanced. For me, I was in no hurry to leave the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem.

We sat on the roof that evening and watched the lights kindle in Jerusalem, and talked of the old-time scenes and changes; till I supposed the question of home troubles and our poor Magnolia people was pretty well driven from papa's mind. But when Mr. Dinwiddie was gone, and I was bidding him good-night, he held me fast in his arms, looking down into my face.

"Little Daisy!" - he said.

"Not just now, papa."

"The very same!" he said. "My little Daisy! - who was always forgetting herself in favour of any poor creature that came in her way."

"Papa - what did our Lord do?"

"Daisy, do you expect to conform yourself and everybody to that pattern?"

"Myself, papa. Not everybody."

"Me? -"

I could not answer papa. I hid my face on his breast; - for he still held me. And now he kissed me fondly.

"We must not do what mamma would never agree to," he said very kindly. Again I could make no answer. I knew all about mamma.

"Daisy," said papa presently, we had not changed our position, - "is Mr. Dinwiddie your friend, or mine?"

"Of us both, papa!" I said in astonishment. "Of me; particularly, perhaps; because he knows me best and has known me longest."

"Then he comes here to see you?"

"And you, papa."

"I am afraid he does not come to see me," papa said. "Do you like to see him very much, Daisy?"

"Certainly, papa; very much; because he is an old, old, very good friend. That is all."

"You are sure?"

"Quite sure, papa."

"I believe that is all," said papa, looking into my face.

"I am afraid, however, that our friend wishes he were not quite so old a friend."

"No, papa," I said; "you are, mistaken. I am sure Mr. Dinwiddie does not think so. He knows better."

"How does he know better?"

"I think he understands, papa."

"What?"

"Me."

"What about you?"

"I think he thinks only that, - what I said, papa."

"And how came you to think he thinks anything about it?"

"Papa -"

"Has he ever told you his thoughts?"

"No, sir; certainly."

"Then what do you mean, Daisy."

"Papa - we have talked."

"But not about that?"

"No, papa; not about Mr. Dinwiddie's feelings, certainly. But I am sure he understands."

"What, my pet?"

"My feelings, papa."

"Your feeling about himself?"

"Yes."

"How should he understand it, Daisy?"

"I think he does, papa -"

"You say, you 'have talked'? What course did your talk take?"

My heart beat. I saw what was coming now, - what ought to come. It was my time.

"It was a very general course, papa. It did not touch, directly, my feeling for Mr. Dinwiddie, or anybody."

"Indirectly?"

"I think - I do not know - I half fancied, Mr. Dinwiddie thought so."

"Thought what?"

"That it did touch some feeling of mine."

"Not for himself. For some other?"

"Yes -" I whispered.

"For whom?" he said abruptly. And then as I hesitated, -

"For one of those two?"

"What two?"

"De Saussure or Marshall?"

"Oh, no, papa!"

"Your cousin Gary?"

"Oh, no, papa!"

"Have I lost you, Daisy?" he said then in a different tone, gentle and lingering and full of regret. My breath was gone; I threw my arms around his neck.

"Why did you never tell me before, Daisy?"

"Papa, - I was afraid."

"Are you afraid now?"

"Yes."

"Let us have it over then, Daisy. Who is it that has stolen you from me?"

"Oh no one, papal" I cried. "No one could. No one can."

"Who has tried, then?"

"A great many people, papa; but not this person."

"How has it come to pass then, my pet? And who is this person?"

"Papa, it came to pass without anybody's knowing it or meaning it; and when I knew it, then I could not help it. But not what you say has come to pass; nobody has stolen or could steal me from you."

"I have only lost, without any other being the gainer," said papa a little bitterly.

"No, papa, you have not lost; you cannot; I am not changed, papa, do you not see that I am not changed? I am yours, just as I always was, - only more, papa."

Papa kissed me, but it cut me to the heart to feel there was pain in the kiss. I did what my lips could to clear the pain away.

"Half is not as much as the whole, Daisy," he said at length.

"It may be, papa. Suppose the whole is twice as large as it used to be?"

"That is a good specimen of woman's reasoning. But you have not told me all yet, Daisy. Who is it that holds the other half?"

There was so much soreness and disappointment shown in papa's words, rather in the manner of them, that it was extremely difficult for me to carry on the conversation. Tears are a help, I suppose, to other women. They do not come to me, not at such times. I stood still in papa's arms, with a kind of dry heartache. The pain in his words was a terrible trial to me. He folded me close again and kissed me over and over, and then whispered, -

"Who is it, Daisy?"

"Papa, it was at West Point. I never meant it, and never knew it, until I could not help it."

"At West Point!" said papa.

"Two years ago, when Dr. Sandford took me there."

"It is not Dr. Sandford!"

"Oh, no, papa! He is not to blame. He did everything he could to take care of me. He knows nothing it all about it."

"Who is it, then?"

"He was a cadet then, papa; he is in the army now."

"Who is he?"

"He is from Vermont; his name is Thorold."

"Not a Southerner?"

"No, papa. Do you care very much for that?"

"Is he in the Northern army, Daisy?"

"He could not help that, papa; being a Vermonter."

Papa let me go; I had been standing in his arms all this while; and took several turns up and down our little room. I sat down, for my joints trembled under me. Papa walked and walked.

"Does your mother know?" he said at last.

"I dared not tell her."

"Who does know?"

"Nobody, papa, but you, and an old friend of mine in New York, - an aunt of Mr. Thorold's."

"Daisy, what is this young man?"

"Papa, I wish you could know him."

"How comes it that he, as well as you, has kept silence?"

"I don't know, papa. His letter must have miscarried. He was going to write to you immediately, just before I left Washington. I was afraid to have him do it, but he insisted that he must."

"Why were you afraid?"

"Papa, I knew you and mamma would not be I pleased; that it would not be what you would wish; and I feared mamma, and perhaps you, would forbid him at once."

"Does he write to you?"

"I would not let him, papa, without your permission; and I was afraid I could not get that."

"What did you expect to do then, Daisy, if I was never to be told?"

"I thought to wait only till the war should be over, papa, - when he might see you himself and you might see him. I thought that would be the best way."

"He did not?"

"No; he insisted on writing."

"He was right. What is the young man's name, Daisy? you have not told me yet."

"Christian Thorold."

"Thorold," said papa. "It is an English name. Have you heard nothing from him, Daisy, since you came to Switzerland?"

"Nothing," - I said.

Papa came over again to where I sat on the divan, bent down and kissed me.

"Am I such a terror to you, Daisy?"

"Oh, no, papa," I said, bursting into tears at last; - "but mamma - you know if mamma said a word at first, she would never go back from it."

"I know," he said. "And I choose, for the present, that this matter should remain a secret between you and me. You need not tell your mother until I bid you."

"Yes, papa. Thank you."

"And, Daisy," said he stroking my hair fondly, - "the war is not ended in America yet, and I am afraid we have a long time to wait for it. Poor child! - But for the present there are no storms ahead."

I rose up and kissed papa, with a very tender good-night given and exchanged; and then I went to my room. The Jerusalem lights were out. But a peace, deep and wide as the blue arch of the sky, seemed to have spanned my life and my heart.

CHAPTER XVII.

OUT OF THE SMOKE

There was an immense burden lifted off me. It is difficult to express the change and the relief in my feelings. The next day was given to an excursion in the neighbourhood; and I never can forget how rare the air seemed to be, as if I were breathing pure life; and how brilliant the sunlight was that fell on the wonderful Palestine carpet of spring flowers. All over they were; under foot and everywhere else; flashing from hidden places, peeping round corners, smiling at us in every meadow and hillside; a glory upon the land. Papa was in great delight, as well as I; and as kind as possible to me; also very good to Mr. Dinwiddie. Mr. Dinwiddie himself seemed to me transformed. I had gone back now to the free feeling of a child; and he looked to me again as my childish eyes had seen him. There was a great amount of fire and vigour and intellectual life in his countenance; the auburn hair and the brown eyes glowed together with the hue of a warm temperament; but that was tempered by a sweet and manly character. I thought he had grown soberer than the Mr. Dinwiddie of my remembrance.

That particular day lies in my memory like some far-off lake that one has seen just under the horizon of a wide landscape, - a still bit of silvery light. It is not the distance, though, in this case, that gives it its shining. We were going that morning to visit Gibeon and Neby Samwil; and the landscape was full, for me, of the peace which had come into the relations between me and papa. It was a delicious spring day; the flowers bursting under our feet with their fresh smiles; the air perfumed with herby scents and young sweetness of nature; while associations of old time clustered all about, like sighs of history. - We went first along the great stony track which leads from Jerusalem to the north; then turned aside into the great route from Jaffa to Jerusalem; not the southern and rougher way which re had taken when we came from the coast. This was he approach of almost all the armies which have poured their fury on the devoted city. We went single file, as one has to go in Palestine; and I liked it. There was too much to think of to make one want to talk. And the buoyancy of the air seemed to feed mind as well as body, and give all the stimulus needed. Mr. Dinwiddie sometimes called out to me to point my attention to something; and the rest of the time I kept company with the past and my own musings.

We visited Gibeon first, and stood by the dry pool where Abner and Joab watched the fight of their twelve picked men; and we read Solomon's prayer.

"This is a wonderful country," said papa, "for the way its associations are packed. There is more history here than in any other region of the world."

"Well, papa, it is the world's history," I said.

"What do you mean, Daisy?"

I hesitated; it was not very easy to tell.

"She is right though," said Mr. Dinwiddie; "it is the very core of the world's history, round which the other is slowly gathering and maturing, to the perfected fruit. Or to take it another way, - ever since God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take put of them a people for His name, His dealings with that people have been an earnest and an image of His course with His Church at large. We may cut down to the heart of the world and find the perfect flower here - as we do in bulbs."

"A blossoming to destruction then, it seems," said my father.

"No!" said Mr. Dinwiddie - "to restoration and glory. The history of this land is not yet finished."

"And you think that is in store for it yet?"

Mr. Dinwiddie answered, - " 'Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the hosts of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.' "

"Who spoke that?"

"The prophet Jeremiah."

"And when, pray?"

"When Nebuchadnezzar and his army were just upon the point of completing the destruction of the city - and of the people."

"Then it refers to their return from captivity, does it not?"

"As the type of the other restoration," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "For 'In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.' Moreover, in Ezekiel's vision of a new temple and city, he gives the dimensions of the temple large enough to take in all Jerusalem, and the holy city as many times exceeding its utmost actual limits; and he says, 'The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.' Jehovah shammah. I wish the day were come."

"You take it as entirely figurative!" said papa. "I thought just now you made it entirely literal."

"What is a figure?" said Mr. Dinwiddie. "And if you take away the literal, where will the spiritual be?"

"True," said papa. "These are things I have not studied."

And then we mounted to the height of Neby Samwil and sat down for a good long look. Mr. Dinwiddie was here as elsewhere invaluable. He told us everything and pointed out everything to us, that we ought to see or know. The seacoast plain lay below; - spread out for many a mile, with here a height and there a cluster of buildings, and the blue sea washing its western border. We could easily see Jaffa, Ramleh and Lydda; we picked those spots out first which we knew. Then Mr. Dinwiddie pointed us to Ashdod, and to Ekron, a little to the left of Ramleh.

"And that is where Nebuchadnezzar was with his army, before he went up to Jerusalem," I said.

"The first time," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Yes; there his hosts of Chaldeans lay in the plain; and there after the place was taken he impaled the chiefs of the town; and then flushed with power, came up to Jerusalem and cast banks against it. So he says; and we know that so Isaiah prophesied he would do; and we know that Hezekiah bought him off."

"Did he come up this way of the Beth-horons?" I asked.

"I suppose so. And down this way, Joshua chased the fleeing kings and their followers and overthrew them as they fled down the pass - what a rush it must have been! - and down there, down where the green sweeps into the hills from the plain, there is Ajalon."

"Papa, do you see?"

"I see; but I do not understand quite so well as you do, Daisy, what you are talking about."

"It is Miss Randolph's own country," remarked Mr. Dinwiddie.

"She is not a Jewess," said papa.

"Pardon me - we have it on authority that 'he is a Jew which is one inwardly;' - an Israelite indeed," Mr . Dinwiddie muttered to himself.

I saw papa was puzzled and half displeased. I hastened to turn the conversation, and showed him where Bethel lay and the mountains of Ephraim; and finally ordered our luncheon basket to be brought forward. But we had to leave our position and choose a shaded place, the sun was growing so hot.

"How long do you expect to remain here - in Palestine, Mr. Dinwiddie?" something prompted me to ask. He hesitated a moment or two and then replied -

"I cannot tell - probably as long as I stay anywhere on this scene of action."

"You do not mean ever to come home?" I said.

"What is 'home,' Miss Daisy?" he replied, looking at me.

"It is where we were born," said papa.

"Would your daughter say so?"

"No," I answered; for I was born at Magnolia. "But I think home is where we have lived, - is it not?"

"Melbourne?" Mr. Dinwiddie suggested.

"No," said I; "it is not Melbourne now, to be sure; but neither could it be possibly any place in Europe, or Asia."

"Are you sure? Not in any circumstances?"

I cannot tell what, in his tone or look, drove his meaning home. But I felt the colour rise in my face and I could not answer.

"It is where the heart is, after all," Mr. Dinwiddie resumed. "The Syrian sky does not make much difference. My home is waiting for me."

"But we speak of home here, and properly."

"Properly, for those who have it."

"I think, Mr. Dinwiddie, that we say 'home' sometimes, when we speak only of where the heart was."

"Better not," he said. "Let us have a living home, not a dead one. And that we can, always."

"What do you know of places where the heart was?" said papa, looking at me curiously.

"Not much, papa; but I was thinking; and I think people mean that sometimes."

"We will both trust she will never come nearer to the knowledge," said Mr. Dinwiddie, with one of his bright looks at papa and at me. It was assuming a little more interest in our affairs than I feared papa would like; but he took it quietly. More quietly than I could, though my reason for disquietude was different. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had set vibrating a chord in my heart which could not just then give a note of pleasure. I wanted it to lie still. The wide fair landscape took a look to me instantly, which indeed belonged to it, of "places where the heart was;" and the echo of broken hopes came up to my ear from the gray ruins near and far. Yet the flowers of spring were laughing and shouting under my feet. Was it hope, or mockery?

"What are you questioning, Miss Daisy ?" said Mr. Dinwiddie, as he offered me some fruit.

"I seemed to hear two voices in nature, Mr. Dinwiddie; - I wanted to find out which was the true."

"What were the voices? - and I will tell you."

"One came from the old heap of Ekron yonder, and the ruins of Ramleh, and Jerusalem, and Gibeon, and Bethel; - the other voice came from the flowers."

"Trust the flowers."

"Why, more than the ruins?"

"Remember," - said he. "One is God's truth; the other is man's falsehood."

"But the ruins tell truth too, Mr. Dinwiddie."

"What truth? They tell of man's faithlessness, perversity, wrongheadedness, disobedience; persisted in, till there was no remedy. And now, to be sure, they are a desolation. But that is not what God willed for the land."

"Yet surely, Mr. Dinwiddie, there come desolations into people's lives too."

"By the same reason."

"Surely without it sometimes."

"Nay," he said. " 'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants; and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.' "

"But their lives are empty sometimes?"

"That they may be more full, then. Depend on it, the promise is sure, - they shall not want any good I thing."

"One must let the Lord judge then," I said somewhat sorrowfully, "what are the good things."

"Will we not?" said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Do we know? We must agree to his judgment, too; and then we shall find there is no want to them that fear him. The Lord is my Shepherd! - I shall not want. But the sheep follow the shepherd, and never dream of choosing out their own pasture, Miss Daisy."

My voice choked a little and I could not answer. And all the rest of the day I could not get back my quiet. The talk of leaving the choice of my life out of my own hands, had roused my hands to cling to their choice with a terrible grasp lest it should be taken away from them. The idea that Thorold and I might be parted from each other, made my heart leap out with inexpressible longing to be with him. It was not till we got home to the Mount of Olives again, and I was watching the glory of the sunset, turning Jerusalem to gold and bringing out rosy and purple and amethyst hues from the Moab mountains, that my heart leapt back to its rest and I heard the voice of nature and God again above the din of my own heart.

As soon as the season was far enough advanced, and Mr. Dinwiddie could make his arrangements to be with us, we left Jerusalem and its surroundings and set off northwards. It was hard to go. Where many a sorrowful traveller has left his little mound of farewell stones on Scopus, I stood and looked back; as long as papa would wait for me. Jerusalem looked so fair, and the thought and prospect of another Jerusalem lay before me, fairer indeed, but so distant. And I fancied storms and some rough travelling between. And here, in the actual Jerusalem, my life had been very sweet; peaceful with a whole flood tide of peacefulness. I resolved I would not lose nor forget this ungratefully; but as long as I could I would be happy. So I turned my face at last to enjoy every foot of the way to Nablous.

During our stay at Jerusalem and on the Mount of Olives, of course letters and papers had been received regularly; and sometimes a bit of news from America had made all our hearts stir. Mine, with a new throb of hope and possible exultation; for what we heard was on the side of Northern successes. Still, papa and Mr. Dinwiddie agreed these were but the fortune of war, and could not - in the nature of things last. The South could not be overcome. So they said, and I feared. But a thrill of possible doubt came over me when I heard of Fort Donelson, and the battle of Pea Ridge, and the prowess of the little iron-clad Monitor. And a great throb of another kind heaved my heart, when we got the news of President Lincoln's Message, recommending that assistance should be given by Congress to every Southern State which would abolish slavery. A light broke in upon the whole struggle; and from that time the war was a different thing to me. Papa and Mr. Dinwiddie talked a great deal about it, discussing the subject in almost all its bearings. I sat by and said nothing.

I would not read the papers myself, all this time. In America I had studied them, and in Switzerland and in Florence I had devoured them. Here in the Holy Land, I had made an agreement with myself to be happy; to leave the care of things which I could not manage, and not to concern myself with the fluctuations on the face of affairs which I could not trace out to their consequences, do what I would. So. I heard the principal points of news from papa's talk and Mr. Dinwiddie's; I let the papers alone. Only with one exception. I could not help it. I could not withhold myself from looking at the lists of wounded and killed. I looked at nothing more; but the thought that one name might be there would have incessantly haunted me, if I had not made sure that it was not there. I dreaded every arrival from the steamers of a new mail budget.

From Mr. Thorold I got no letter. Nor from Miss Cardigan. From Mrs. Sandford one; which told me nothing I wanted to know. To mamma papa had writ- ten, describing to her the pleasure we were enjoying and the benefit his health was deriving from our journey, and asking her to join us at Beyrout and spend the summer on Lebanon.

Towards Beyrout we now journeyed gently on; stopping and lingering by the way as our custom was. At Nablous, at Nazareth, at Tiberias, at Safed, at Banias; then across the country to Sidon, down to Khaiffa and Carmel; finally we went up to Beyrout. Papa enjoyed every bit of the way; to me it was a journey scarcely of this earth, the happiness of it was so great. Mr. Dinwiddie everywhere our kind and skilful guide, counsellor, helper; knowing all the ground, and teaching us to use our time to the very best advantage. He made papa more at ease about me, and me about papa.

At Beyrout, for the first time since we left Jerusalem, we found ourselves again in a hotel. Mr. Dinwiddie went to find our despatches that were awaiting us. Papa lay down on the cushions of a divan. I sat at the window, wondering at what I saw. I wonder now at the remembrance.

It was afternoon, and the shades and colours on the mountains and the sea were a labyrinth of delight. Yes, the eye and the mind lost themselves again and again, to start back again to the consciousness of an enchanted existence. The mountains rising from the coast were in full view of my window, shaded with all sorts of green from the different woods and cultivation which clothed their sides. The eye followed their growing heights and ridges, till it rested on the snow summit of Sunnin; then swept round the range to the southward; but ever came back again to the lofty, reposeful majesty of that white mountain top in the blue ether. Little streams I could see dashing down the rocks; a white thread amongst the green; castles or buildings of some stately sort were upon every crag; I found afterwards they were monasteries. The sea waves breaking on the rocks of the shore gave other touches of white, and the sea was taking a deep hue, and the town stretching back from it looked gay and bright, with pretty houses and palm trees and palaces, and, bright-coloured dresses flitting here and there in the streets; and white sails were on the sea. I had never seen, I have never seen, anything more lovely than Beyrout. I had come to the city rather anxious; for we expected there to meet a great budget of news, which I always dreaded; wandering about from place to place, we had been blissfully separated for some time from all disturbing intelligence. Now we must meet it, perhaps; but the glory of the beauty before me wrapped my heart round as with an unearthly shield. Peace, peace, and good will, - it spoke, from Him who made the beauty and owned the glory; softly it reminded me that my Father in heaven could not fail in love nor in resources. I leaned my head against the frame of the open window, and rested and was glad.

Mr. Dinwiddie came back with a business step. I looked up, but I would not fear. He laid a pile of letters and papers before papa, and then sat down to the consideration of some of his own.

"What is doing at home, Dinwiddie?" papa asked.

"A good deal, since our last advices."

"What? I am tired of reading about it."

"Yes," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "You want me to save you the trouble?"

"If it is no trouble to you."

"The news is of several advantages gained by the Yankees."

"That won't last," said papa. "But there are always fluctuations in these things."

"Back in March," Mr. Dinwiddie went on, "there are reported two engagements in which our troops came off second best - at Newhern and at Winchester. It is difficult perhaps to know the exact truth - the papers on the two sides hold such different language. But the sixth of April there was a furious battle at Pittsburg Landing, our men headed by Beauregard, Polk and Sidney Johnston, when our men got the better very decidedly; the next day came up a sweeping reinforcement of the enemy under Grant and others, and took back the fortune of war into their own hands, it seems."

"Perhaps that is doubtful too," observed my father.

"I see Beauregard asked permission to bury his dead."

"Many killed?" asked my father.

"Terribly many. There were large numbers engaged, and fierce fighting."

So they can do it, I said to myself, amid all my heart- beating.

"There will be of course, some variation of success," said my father.

"The pendulum is swung all to one side, in these last news," said Mr. Dinwiddie.

"What next?"

"Fort Pulaski is taken."

"Pulaski!" my father exclaimed.

"Handsomely done, after a bombardment of thirty hours."

"I am surprised, I confess," said papa.

"The House of Representatives has passed a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District."

"Oh, I am glad!" I exclaimed. "That is good."

"Is that all you think good in the news?" said Mr. Dinwiddie a little pointedly.

"Daisy is a rebel," said papa.

"No, papa; not I surely. I stand by the President and the Country."

"Then we are rebels, Dinwiddie," said papa, half wearily. "Half the country is playing the fool, that is clear; and the whole must suffer."

"But the half where the seat of war is, suffers the most."

"That will not last," said papa. "I know the South."

"I wonder if we know the North," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Farragut has run the gauntlet of the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi and taken New Orleans."

"Taken New Orleans!" my father exclaimed again, rising half up as he lay on the cushions of the divan.

"It was done in style," said Mr. Dinwiddie, looking along the columns of his paper. "Let me read you this, Mr. Randolph."

Papa assented, and he read; while I turned my face to the window again, and listened to Farragut's guns and looked at Lebanon. What a strange hour it was! There was hope at work and rejoicing; but it shook me. And the calmness of the everlasting hills and the mingled sweetnesses of the air, came in upon the fever of my heart with cooling and quieting power. The sea grew a deeper blue as I listened and looked; the mountains - what words can tell the mantle of their own purple that enfolded them as the evening came on; and the snowy heights of Sunnin and Kunisyeh grew rosy. I looked and I drank it in; and I could not fear for the future.

I believe I had fallen into a great reverie, during which Mr. Dinwiddie ended his reading and left the room. It was papa's touch on my shoulder that roused me. He had come to my side.

"Are you happy, Daisy?" was his question.

"Papa? -" I said in bewilderment.

"Your face was as calm as if you had nothing to think about."

"I had been thinking, papa. I was thinking, I believe."

"Does this strange news make you happy?"

"Oh, no, papa; not that."

"What then?"

"Something that is no news, and that never can grow old, papa. The mountains and the sea were just reminding me of it."

"You mean - what? You speak riddles, Daisy."

"Papa, you would give me everything good for me, if you could."

He kissed me fondly.

"I would, my child. Whether I can, or no, that troubles me by its uncertainty."

"Papa, my Father in heaven can, and will. There is no doubt about His power. And so there is no uncertainty."

"Daisy! -" said papa, looking at me in a strange way.

"Yes, papa, I mean it. Papa, you know it is true."

"I know you deserve all I can give you," he said, taking my face in his two hands and looking into it. "Daisy - is there anybody in the world that loves you as well as I do?"

That was a little too much, to bring up my heart in words in that manner. In spite of my composure, which I thought so strong, I was very near bursting into tears. I believe my face flushed and then grew pale with the struggle. Papa took me in his arms.

"You shall have no trouble that I can shield you from," he said tenderly. "I will put nothing between you and this young man if he is worthy of you, Daisy. I will pat nothing. But others may. My power reaches only a certain distance."

"Papa -" I began, but I could not say what I would.

"Well?3 - said he tenderly, stroking my hair, "what is it? I would keep all trouble from you, my pet, if I could."

"Papa," I whispered, "that may not be best. We must leave that. But papa, if you only knew what I know and were glad as I am glad, - I think I could bear all the rest!"

"How shall I be glad as you are glad, Daisy?" he said, half sadly.

"Papa, let Jesus make you happy!"

"You are talking Hebrew, my child."

"No, papa; for if you seek Him, He will make you happy."

"Come! we will seek him from to-day," my father said.

And that was my summer on Lebanon. My mother wrote that she would not join us in Syria; she preferred to remain in Paris, where she had my aunt Gary's company and could receive the American news regularly. Her words were bitter and scornful about the successes of the Northern army and McClellan's fruitless siege of Yorktown; so bitter, that papa and I passed them over without a word of comment, knowing how they bore on my possible future.

But we, we studied the Bible, and we lived on Lebanon. And when I have said that, I have said all. From one village to another, higher and higher up, we went; pitching our tents under the grand old walnut trees, within sight or hearing of mountain torrents that made witcheries of beauty in the deep ravines; studying sunrisings, when the light came over the mountain's brow and lit our broken hillside by degrees, our walnut tree tops and the thread of the rushing stream; and sunsets, when the sun looked at us from the far-off Mediterranean and touched no spot of Lebanon but to make a glorified place of it. With Mr. Dinwiddie we took rides to different scenes of wonder and beauty; made excursions sometimes of a week or two long; we dreamed at Baalbec and rejoiced under the Cedars. Everywhere papa and I read the Bible. Mr. Dinwiddie left us for some time during the summer, and returned again a few days before we left Lebanon and Syria.

"So you are going to-morrow" - he said the last evening, as he and I were watching the sunset from the edge of the ravine which bordered our camping-ground. I made no answer, for my heart was too full.

"It has been a good summer," he said. I bowed my head in assent.

"And now," he said, "you push out into the world again. I feel about you as I did when I saw your little craft just starting forth, and knew there were breakers ahead."

"You do not know that now, Mr. Dinwiddie?" I said.

"I know there are rocks. If the sea should let you pass them in quiet, it would be a wonder."

That was too true, I knew. I could only be silent.

"How do you feel?" he next asked.

"I know it is as you say, Mr. Dinwiddie."

"And in view of it? -"

"What can I do, - Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"Nothing to avoid the rocks. The helm is not in your hand."

"But I know in whose hand it is."

"And are willing to have it there?"

"More than willing," I said, meeting his eye.

"Then the boat will go right," he said, with a sort of accent of relief. "It is the cross pulls with the oar, striving to undo the work of the rudder, that draw the vessel out of her course. The Pilot knows, - if you can only leave it to the Pilot."

There was a pause again.

"But He sometimes takes the boat into the breakers," Mr. Dinwiddie said.

"Yes," I said. "I know it."

"What then, Daisy, my friend?"

"What then, Mr. Dinwiddie?" I said, looking up at him. "Then she must be broken to pieces."

"And what then? Can you trust the Pilot still?"

His great eyes were flashing and glittering as he looked at me. No careless nor aimless thought had caused such an interrogatory, I knew. I met the eyes which seemed to be blazing and melting at once, but I answered only by the look.

"You may," he went on, without taking his eyes from mine. "You may trust safely. Even if the vessel is shaken and broken, trust even then, when all seems gone. There shall be smooth waters yet; and a better voyage than if you had gone a less wearisome way."

"Why do you say all this to me, Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"Not because I am a prophet," he said, looking away now, - "for I am none. And if I saw such trials ahead for you, I should have hardly courage to utter them. I asked, to comfort myself; that I might know of a certainty that you are safe, whatever comes."

"Thank you," I said, rather faintly.

"I shall stay here," he went on presently, "in the land of my work; and you will be gone to-morrow for other scenes. It isn't likely you will ever see me again. But if ever you need a friend, on the other side of the globe, if you call me, I will come. It is folly to say that, though," he said plucking hastily at a spear of grass; - "you will not need nor think of me. But I suppose you know, Daisy, by this time, that all those who come near you, love you. I am no exception. You must have charity for me."

"Dear Mr. Dinwiddie," I said reaching out my hand, - "if I were in trouble and wanted a friend, there is no one in the world that I would sooner, or - rather, or as soon or as lief, ask to help me. Except -" I added, and could not finish my sentence. For I had remembered there was an exception which ought to be implied somewhere.

"I know," he said, wringing my hand. "I wish I could heap blessings on the head of the exception. Now let us go in."

The next day we rode down to Beyrout, and took the steamer that same evening.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A MASKED BATTERY

My Palestine holiday lasted, in some measure, all the way of our journey home; and left me at the very moment when we entered our Parisian hotel and met mamma. It left me then. All the air of the place, much more all the style of mamma's dress and manner, said at once that we had come into another world. She was exquisitely dressed; that was usual; it could not have been only that, nor the dainty appointments around her; - it was something in her bearing, an indescribable something even as she greeted us, which said, You have played your play - now you will play mine. And it said, I cannot tell how, The cards are in my hands.

Company engaged her that evening. I saw little of her till the next day. At our late breakfast then we discussed many things. Not much of Palestine; mamma did not want to hear much of that. She had had it in our letters, she said. American affairs were gone into largely; with great eagerness and bitterness by both mamma and Aunt Gary; with triumphs over the disasters of the Union army before Richmond, and other lesser affairs in which the North had gained no advantage; invectives against the President's July proclamation, his impudence and his cowardice; and prophecies of ruin to him and his cause. Papa listened and said little. I heard and was silent; with throbbing forebodings of trouble.

"Daisy is handsomer than ever," my aunt remarked, when even politics had exhausted themselves. But I wondered what she was thinking of when she said it. Mamma lifted her eyes and glanced me over.

"Daisy has a rival, newly appeared," she said. "She must do her best."

"There cannot be rivalry, mamma, where there is no competition," I said.

"Cannot there?" said mamma. "You never told us, Daisy, of your successes in the North."

I do not think I flushed at all in answer to this remark; the blood seemed to me to go all to my heart.

"Who has been Daisy's trumpeter?" papa asked.

"There is a friend of hers here," mamma said, slowly sipping her coffee. I do not know how I sat at the table; things seemed to swim in a maze before my eyes; then mamma went on, - "What have you done with your victim, Daisy?"

"Mamma," I said, "I do not at all know of whom you are speaking."

"Left him for dead, I suppose," she said. "He has met with a good Samaritan, I understand, who carried oil and wine."

Papa's eye met mine for a moment.

"Felicia," he said, "you are speaking very unintelligibly. I beg you will use clearer language, for all our sakes."

"Daisy understands," she said.

"Indeed I do not, mamma."

"Not the good Samaritan's part, of course. That has come since you were away. But you knew once that a Northern Blue-coat had been pierced by the fire of your eyes?"

"Mamma," I said, - "if you put it so, I have known it of more than one."

"Imagine it!" said mamma, with an indescribable gesture of lip, which yet was gracefully slight.

"Imagine what?" said papa.

"One of those canaille venturing to look at Daisy!"

"My dear," said papa, "pray do not fail to remember, that we have passed a large portion of our life among those whom you denominate canaille, and who always were permitted the privilege of looking at us all. I do not recollect that we felt it any derogation from anything that belonged to us."

"Did you let him look at you, Daisy?" mamma said, lifting her own eyes up to me. "It was cruel of you."

"Your friend Miss St. Clair, is here, Daisy," my aunt Gary said.

"My friend!" I repeated.

"She is your friend," said mamma. "She has bound up the wounds you have made, Daisy, and saved you from being in the full sense a destroyer of human life."

"When did Faustina come here?" I asked.

"She has been here a month. Are you glad?"

"She was never a particular friend of mine, mamma."

"You will love her now," said mamma; and the conversation turned. It had only filled me with vague fears. I could not understand it.

I met Faustina soon in company. She was as brilliant a vision as I have often seen; her beauty was perfected in her womanhood, and was of that type which draws all eyes. She was not changed, however; and she was not changed towards me. She met me with the old coldness; with a something besides which I could not fathom. It gave me a secret feeling of uneasiness; I suppose, because that in it I read a meaning of exultation, a secret air of triumph, which, I could not tell how or why, directed itself towards me and gathered about my head. It grew disagreeable to me to meet her; but I was forced to do this constantly. We never talked together more than a few words; but as we passed each other, as our eyes met and hers went from me, as she smiled at the next opening of her mouth, I felt always something sinister, or at least something hidden, which took the shape of an advantage gained. I tried to meet her with perfect pleasantness, but it grew difficult. In my circumstances I was very open to influences of discouragement or apprehension; indeed the trouble was to fight them off. This intangible evil however presently took shape.

I thought I had observed that for a day or two my father's eyes had lingered on me frequently with a tender or wistful expression, more than usual. I did not know what it meant. Mamma was pushing me into company all this while, and making no allusion to my own private affairs, if she had any clue to them. One morning I had excused myself from an engagement which carried away my aunt and her, that I might have a quiet time to read with papa. Our readings had been much broken in upon - lately. With a glad step I went to papa's room; a study, I might call it, where he spent all of the time he did not wish to give to society. He was there, expecting me; a wood-fire was burning on the hearth; the place had the air of comfort and seclusion and intelligent leisure; books and engravings and works of art scattered about, and luxurious easy-chairs standing ready for the accommodation of papa and me.

"This is nice, papa!" I said, as the cushions of one of them received me.

"It is not quite the Mount of Olives," said papa.

"No indeed!" I answered; and my eyes filled. The bustle of the fashionable world was all around me, the storms of the political world were shaking the very ground where I stood, the air of our little social world was not as on Lebanon sweet and pure. When would it be again? Papa sat thinking in his easy-chair.

"How do you like Paris, my child?"

"Papa, it does not make much difference, Italy or Paris, so long as I am where you are, and we can have a little time together."

"Your English friend has followed you from Florence."

"Yes, papa. At least he is here."

"And your German friend."

"He is here, papa."

There was a silence. I wondered what papa was thinking of, but I did not speak, for I saw he was thinking.

"You have never heard from your American friend?"

"No, papa."

"Daisy," said papa, tenderly, and looking at me now, - "you are strong?"

"Am I, papa?"

"I think you are. You can bear the truth, cannot you?"

"I hope I can, -any truth that you have to tell me," I said. One thought of terrible evil chilled my heart for a moment, and passed away. Papa's tone and manner did not touch anything like that. Though it was serious enough to awake my apprehension. I could not guess what to apprehend.

"Did you get any clear understanding of what your mother might mean, one day at breakfast, when she was alluding to friends of yours in America? - you remember?"

"I remember. I did not understand in the least, papa."

"It had to do with Miss St. Clair."

"Yes."

"It seems she spent all the last winter in Washington, where the society was unusually good, it is said, as well as unusually military. I do not know how that can be true, when all Southerners were of course out of the city - but that's no matter. A girl like this St. Clair girl of course knew all the epaulettes there were."

"Yes, papa - she is always very much admired. She must be that everywhere."

"I suppose so, though I don't like her," said papa. "Well, Daisy, - I do not know how to tell you. She knew your friend."

"Yes, papa."

"And he admired her."

I was silent, wondering what all this was coming to.

"Do you understand me, Daisy? - She has won him from you."

A feeling of sickness passed over me; it did not last. One vision of my beautiful enemy, one image of her as Mr. Thorold's friend, - it made me sick for that instant; then, I believe I looked up and smiled.

"Papa, it is not true, I think."

"It is well attested, Daisy."

"By whom?"

"By a friend of Miss St. Clair, who was with her in Washington and knew the whole progress of the affair, and testifies to their being engaged."

"To whose being engaged, papa?"

"Miss St. Clair and your friend, - Colonel Somebody. I forget his name, Daisy, though you told me, I believe."

"He was not a colonel, papa; not at all; not near it."

"No. He has been promoted, I understand. Promotions are rapid in the Northern army now-a-days; a lieutenant in the regulars is transformed easily into a colonel of volunteers. They want more officers than they have got, I suppose."

I remained silent, thinking.

"Who told you all this, papa?"

"Your mother. She has it direct from the friend of your rival."

"But, papa, nobody knew about me. It was kept entirely private."

"Not after you came away, I suppose. How else should this story be told as of the gentleman you were engaged to?"

I waited a little while, to get my voice steady, and then I went on with my reading to papa. Once he interrupted me to say, "Daisy, how do you take this that I have been telling you?" - and at the close of our reading he asked again in a perplexed manner, "You do not let it trouble you, Daisy?" - and each time I answered him, "I do not believe it, papa." Neither did I; but at the same time a dreadful shadow of possibility came over my spirit. I could not get from under it, and my soul fainted, as those were said to do who lay down for shelter under the upas tree. A poison as of death seemed to distil upon me from that shadow. Not let it trouble me? It was a man's question, I suppose, put with a man's powerlessness to read a woman's mind; even though the man was my father.

I noticed from that time more than ever his tender lingering looks upon me, wistful, and doubtful. It was hard to bear them, and I would not confess to them. I would not and did not show by look or word that I put faith in the story my father had brought me, or that I had lost faith in any one who had ever commanded it. Indeed I did not believe the story. I did trust Mr. Thorold. Nevertheless the cold chill of a "What if?" - fell upon me sometimes. Could I say that it was an impossibility, that he should have turned from me, from one whom such a thorn hedge of difficulties encompassed, to another woman so much, - I was going to say, so much more beautiful; but I do not mean that, for I do not think it. No, but to one whose beauty was so brilliant and whose hand was so attainable? It would not be an impossibility in the case of many men. Yes, I trusted Mr. Thorold; but so had other women trusted. A woman's trust is not a guarantee for the worthiness of its object. I had only my trust and my knowledge. Could I say that both might not be mistaken? And trust as I would, these thoughts would rise.

Now it was very hard for me to meet Faustina St. Clair, and bear the supercilious air of confident triumph with which she regarded me. I think nobody could have observed this or read it but myself only; its tokens were too exceedingly slight and inappreciable for anything but the tension of my own heart to feel. I always felt it, whenever we were in company together; and though I always said at such times, "Christian cannot love her," - when I was at home and alone, the shadow of doubt and jealousy came over me again. Everything withers in that shadow. A woman must either put it out of her heart, somehow, or grow a diseased and sickly thing, mentally and morally. I found that I was coming to this in my own mind and character; and that brought me to a stand.

I shut myself up one or two nights - I could not command my days - and spent the whole night in thinking and praying. Two things were before me. The story might be somehow untrue. Time would show. In the meanwhile, nothing but trust would have done honour to Mr. Thorold or to myself. I thought it was untrue. But suppose it were not, - suppose that the joy of my life were gone, passed over to another; who had done it? By whose will was my life stripped? The false faith or the weakness of friend or enemy could not have wrought thus, if it had not been the will of God that His child should be so tried; that she should go through just this sorrow, for some great end or reason known only to Himself. Could I not trust Him -?

If there is a vulture whose claws are hard to unloose from the vitals of the spirit, I think it is jealousy. I found it had got hold of me, and was tearing the life out of me. I knew it in time. O sing praise to our King, you who know Him! he is mightier than our enemies; we need not be the prey of any. But I struggled and prayed, more than one night through, before faith could gain the victory. Then it did. I gave the matter into my Lord's hands. If he had decreed that I was to lose Mr. Thorold, and in this way, - why, I was my Lord's, to do with as He pleased; it would all be wise and glorious, and kind too, whatever He did. I would just leave that. But in the mean time, till I knew that He had taken my joy from me, I would not believe it; but would go on trusting the friend I had believed so deserving of trust. I would believe in Mr. Thorold still and be quiet, till I knew my confidence was misplaced.

It was thoroughly done at last. I gave up myself to God again and my affairs; and the rest that is unknown anywhere else, came to me at His feet. I gave up being jealous of Faustina. If the Lord pleased that she should have what had been so precious to me, why, well! I gave it up. But not till I was sure I had cause.

What a lull came upon my harassed and tossed spirit, which had been like a stormy sea under cross winds. Now it lay still, and could catch the reflection of the sun again and the blue of heaven. I could go into society now and please mamma, and read at home to papa and give him the wonted gratification; and I could meet Faustina with an open brow and a free hand.

"Daisy, you are better this day or two," papa said to me, wistfully. "You are like yourself. What is it, my child?"

"It is Christ, my Lord, papa."

"I do not know what you can mean by that, Daisy," said papa, looking grave. "You are not an enthusiast or a fanatic."

"It is not enthusiasm, papa, to believe God's promises. It can't be fanaticism, to be glad of them."

"Promises?" said papa. "What are you talking of?"

"Papa, I am a servant of Christ," I said; I remember I was arranging the sticks of wood on the fire as I spoke, and it made pauses between my words; - "and He has promised to take care of His servants and to let no harm come to them, - no real harm; - how can I be afraid, papa? My Lord knows, - He knows all about it and all about me; I am safe; I have nothing to do to be afraid."

"Safe from what?"

"Not from trouble, papa; I do not mean that. He may see that it is best that trouble should come to me. But it will not come unless He sees that it is best; and I can trust Him."

"My dear child, is there not a little fanaticism there?"

"How, papa?"

"It seems to me to sound like it."

"It is nothing but believing God, papa."

"I wish I understood you," said papa, thoughtfully.

So I knelt down beside him and put my arms about him, and told him what I wanted him to understand; much more than I had ever been able to do before. The pain and sorrow of the past few weeks had set me free, and the rest of heart of the last few days too. I told papa all about it. I think, as Philip did to Queen Candace's servant, I "preached to him Jesus."

"So that is what you mean by being a Christian," said papa at last. "It is not living a good moral life and keeping all one's engagements."

" 'By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.' Even you, papa, are not good enough for that. God's law calls for perfection."

"Nobody is perfect."

"No, papa; and so all have come short of the glory of God."

"Well, then, I don't see what you are going to do, Daisy."

"Christ has paid our debt, papa."

"Then nobody need do anything."

"Oh, no, papa; for the free pardon that is made out for you and me - the white robe that Christ counsels us to buy of Him - waits for our acceptance and is given only on conditions. It is ready for every one who will trust Christ and obey Him; a free pardon, papa; a white robe that will hide all our ugliness. But we must be willing to have it on the conditions."

"And how then, Daisy?"

"Why, this way, papa. See, - I am dead - with Christ; it is as if I myself had died under the law, instead of my substitute; the penalty is paid, and the law has nothing to say to a dead malefactor, you know, papa. And now, I am dead to the law, and my life is Christ's. I live because He lives, and by His Spirit living in me; all I am and have belongs to Christ; the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not trying to keep the law, to buy my life; but I am keeping the law, because Christ has given me life - do you see, papa? and all my life is love to Him."

"It seems to me, Daisy," said papa, "that if faith is all, people may lead what lives they choose."

"Papa, the faith that believes in Christ, loves and obeys Him; or it is just no faith. It is nothing. It is dead."

"And faith makes such a change in people's feelings and lives?"

"Why, yes, papa, for then they live by Christ's strength and not their own; and in the love of Him, and not in the love of themselves any longer."

"Daisy," said papa, "it is something I do not know, and I see that you do know; and I would like to be like you anyhow. Pray for me, my child, that I may have that faith."

I had never done it in his presence before, but now I knelt down by the table and uttered all my heart to the One who could hear us both. I could not have done it, I think, a few weeks earlier; but this last storm had seemed to shake me free from everything. What mattered, if I could only help to show papa the way? He was weeping, I think, while I was praying; I thought he sought to hide the traces of it when I rose up; and I went from the room with a gladness in my heart that said, "What if, even if Thorold is lost to me! There is something better beyond."

Papa and I seemed to walk on a new plane from that day. There was a hidden sympathy between us, which had its root in the deepest ground of our nature. We never had been one before, as we were one from that time.

It was but a few days, and another thing happened. The mail bag had come in as usual, and I had gathered up my little parcel of letters and gone with it to my room, before I examined what they were. A letter evidently from Mr. Dinwiddie had just made my heart leap with pleasure, when glancing at the addresses of the rest before I broke the seal of this, I saw what made my heart stand still. It was the handwriting of Mr. Thorold. I think my eyes grew dim and dazed for a minute; then I saw clearly enough to open the envelope, which showed signs of having been a traveller. There was a letter for me, such a letter as I had wanted; such as I had thirsted for; it was not long, for it was written by a busy man, but it was long enough, for it satisfied my thirst. Enclosed with it was another envelope directed to papa.

I waited to get calm again; for the joy which shot through all my veins was a kind of elixir of life; it produced too much exhilaration for me to dare to see anybody. Yet I think I was weeping; but at any rate, I waited till my nerves were quiet and under control, and then I went with the letter to papa. I knew mamma was just gone out and there was no fear of interruption. Papa read the letter, and read it, and looked up at me.

"Do you know what this is, Daisy?"

"Papa, I guess. I know what it was meant to be."

"It is a cool demand of you," said papa.

I was glad, and proud; that was what it ought to be; that was what I knew it suited papa that it should be. I stood by the mantelpiece, waiting.

"So you knew about it?"

"Mr. Thorold said he would write to you, papa. I had been afraid, and asked him not. I wanted him to wait till he could see you."

"One sees a good deal of a man in his letters," said papa; "and this is a man's letter. He thinks enough of himself, Daisy."

"Papa, - not too much."

"I did not say too much; but enough; and a man who does not think enough of himself is a poor creature. I would not have a man ask me for you, Daisy, who did not in his heart think he was worthy of you."

"Papa, you draw nice distinctions," I said half laughing.

"That would be simple presumption, not modesty; this is manliness."

We were both silent upon this; papa considering the letter, or its proposal; I thinking of Mr. Thorold's manliness, and feeling very much pleased that he had shown it and papa had discerned it so readily. The silence lasted till I began to be curious.

"What shall we do now, Daisy?" papa said at last. I left him to answer his own question.

"Hey? What do you wish me to do?"

"Papa, - I hope you will give him a kind answer."

"How can I get it to him?"

"I can enclose it to an aunt of his, whom I know. She can get it to him. She lives in New York."

"His aunt? So you know his family?

"No one of them, papa, but this one; his mother's sister."

"What sort of a person is she?"

So I sat down and told papa about Miss Cardigan. He listened with a very grave, thoughtful face; asking few questions, but kissing me. And then, without more ado, he turned to the table and wrote a letter, writing very fast, and handed it to me. It was all I could have asked that it might be. My heart filled with grateful rest.

"Will that do?" said papa as I gave it back.

"Papa, only one thing more, - if you are willing, that we should sometimes write to each other?"

"Hm - that sounds moderate," said papa. "By the way, why was not this letter written and sent sooner? What is the date? - why, Daisy! -"

"What, papa?"

"My child, this letter, - it is a good year old, and more; written in the beginning of last winter."

It took me a little while to get the full bearings of this; then I saw that it dated back to a time quite anterior to the circumstances of Faustina St. Clair's story, whatever that amounted to. Papa was all thrown back.

"This is good for nothing, now, you see, Daisy."

"Oh, no, papa."

"For the purposes of action."

"Papa, it does not matter, the date."

"Yes, Daisy, it does; for it speaks of a man of last year, and my answer would go to a man of this year."

"They are not different men, papa."

"I must be assured of that." He was folding up his letter, his own, and I saw the next thing would be to throw it into the fire. I laid my hand over his.

"Papa, don't do that. Let me have it."

"I cannot send it."

"Papa, let me have it. I will send it to Miss Cardigan - she loves me almost as well as you do - I will tell her; and if there is any truth in mamma's story, Miss Cardigan will know and she will burn the letter, just as well as you. And so you would escape doing a great wrong."

"You may be mistaken, my child."

"Then Miss Cardigan will burn the letter, papa. I can trust her."

"Can I trust her?"

"Yes, papa, through me. Please let me have it. There shall come no harm from this, papa."

"Daisy, your mother says he is engaged to this girl."

"It is a mistake, papa."

"You cannot prove it, my child."

"Time will."

"Then will be soon enough for my action."

"But papa, in the mean time? - think of the months he has been waiting already for an answer -"

I suppose the tears were in my eyes, as I pleaded, with my hand still upon papa's hand, covering the papers. He slowly drew his hand away, leaving the letter under mine.

"Well!" - said he, - "do as you will."

"You are not unwilling, papa?"

"I am a little unwilling, Daisy; but I cannot deny you, child. I hope you are right."

"Then, papa, add that one word about letters, will you?"

"And if it is all undeserved?"

"It is not, papa."

Papa set his teeth for a moment, with a look which, however, wonted perhaps in his youthful days, I had very rarely seen called up in him. It passed then, and he wrote the brief word I had asked for, of addition to his letter, and gave it to me; and then took me in his arms and kissed me again.

"You are not very wise in the world, my Daisy," he said; "and men would say I am not. But I cannot deny you. Guard your letter to Miss Cardigan. And for the present all this matter shall sleep in our own bosoms."

"Papa," I asked, "how much did mamma know - I mean - how much did she hear about me that was true?"

"It was reported that you had been engaged."

"She heard that."

"Yes."

"She has never spoken about it."

"She thinks it not necessary."

I was silent a moment, pondering, as well I might; but then I kissed papa and thanked him, and went off and wrote and posted my letter with its enclosure. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.

CHAPTER XIX.

ONE FALLEN

I sent my letter, and waited. I got no answer. The weeks rolled on, and the months. It was palpable, that delays which had kept back one letter for a year might affect the delivery of another letter in the same way; but it is hard, the straining one's eyes into thick darkness with the vain endeavour to see something.

The months were outwardly gay; very full of society life, though not of the kind that I cared for. I went into it to please mamma; and succeeded but partially; for she insisted I was too sober and did not half take the French tone of easy, light, graceful skimming over the surface of things. But mamma could be deep and earnest too on her own subjects of interest. The news of President Lincoln's proclamation, setting free the slaves of the rebel States, roused her as much as she could be roused. There were no terms to her speech or my aunt Gary's; violent and angry against not only the President, but everything and everybody that shared Northern growth and extraction. - How bitterly they sneered at "Massachusetts codfish;" - I think nothing would have induced either of them to touch it; and whatsoever belonged to the East or the North, not only meats and drinks, but Yankee spirit and manners and courage, were all, figuratively, put under foot and well trampled on. I listened and trembled, sometimes; sometimes I listened and rejoiced. For, after all, my own affairs were not the whole world; and a thrill of inexpressible joy went through me when I remembered that my old Maria, and Pete, and the Jems, and Darry, were all, by law, freed for ever from the oppression of Mr. Edwards and any like him; and that the day of their actual emancipation would come, so soon as the rights of the Government should be established over the South. And of this issue I began to be a little hopeful, beginning to believe that it might be possible. Antietam and Corinth, and Fredricksburg and New Orleans, with varying fortune, had at least proclaimed to my ear that Yankees could fight; there was no doubt of that now; and Southern prowess could not always prevail against theirs. Papa ceased to question it, I noticed; though mamma's sneers grew more intense as the occasion for them grew less and less obvious.