A. D. T. Whitney "Even by means of our sorrows, we belong to the Eternal Plan." Humboldt.

"Go in there," said Nurse Sampson to Mr. Gartney, calling him in from the porch, "and lay that man flat on the floor!"

Which Mr. Gartney did, wondering, vaguely, in the instant required for his transit to the apartment, whether bandit or lunatic might await his offices.

All happened in a moment; and in that moment, the minister's fugitive senses began to return.

"Lie quiet, a minute. Faith, get a glass of wine, or a little brandy."

Faith quickly brought both; and Mr. Armstrong, whom her father now assisted to the armchair again, took the wine from her hand, with a smile that thanked her, and depreciated himself.

"I am not ill," he said. "It is all over now. It was the sudden shock. I did not think I could have been so weak."

Mrs. Gartney had gone to find some hartshorn. Mrs. Etherege, seeing that the need for it was passing, went out to tell her sister so, and to ask the strange woman who had originated all the commotion, what it could possibly mean. Mr. Gartney, at the same instant, caught a glimpse of his horse, which he had left unfastened at the gate, giving indications of restlessness, and hastened out to tie him.

Faith and Mr. Armstrong were left alone.

"Did I frighten you, my child?" he asked, gently. "It was a strange thing to happen! I thought that woman was in her grave. I thought she died, when—I will tell you all about it some day, soon, Miss Faith. It was the sad, terrible page of my life."

Faith's eyes were lustrous with sympathy. Under all other thought was a beating joy—not looked at yet—that he could speak to her so! That he could snatch this chance moment to tell her, only, of his sacred sorrow!

She moved a half step nearer, and laid her hand, softly, on the chair arm beside him. She did not touch so much as a fold of his sleeve; but it seemed, somehow, like a pitying caress.

"I am sorry!" said she. And then the others came in.

Mr. Gartney walked round with his friend to the old house.

Miss Sampson began to recount what she knew of the story. Faith escaped to her own room at the first sentence. She would rather have it as Mr. Armstrong's confidence.

Next morning, Faith was dusting, and arranging flowers in the east parlor, and had just set the "hillside door," as they called it, open, when Mr. Armstrong passed the window and appeared thereat.

"I came to ask, Miss Faith, if you would walk up over the Ridge. It is a lovely morning, and I am selfish enough to wish to have you to myself for a little of it. By and by, I would like to come back, and see Miss Sampson."

Faith understood. He meant to tell her this that had been heavy upon his heart through all these years. She would go. Directly, when she had brought her hat, and spoken with her mother.

Mrs. Etherege and Mrs. Gartney were sitting together in the guest chamber, above. At noon, after an early dinner, Mrs. Etherege was to leave.

Mr. Armstrong stood upon the doorstone below, looking outward, waiting. If he had been inside the room, he would not have heard. The ladies, sitting by the window, just over his head, were quite unaware and thoughtless of his possible position.

He caught Faith's clear, sweet accent first, as she announced her purpose to her mother, adding:

"I shall be back, auntie, long before dinner."

Then she crossed the hall into her own room, made her slight preparation for the walk, and went down by the kitchen staircase, to give Parthenia some last word about the early dinner.

"I think," said Mrs. Etherege, in the keenness of her worldly wisdom, "that this minister of yours might as well have a hint of how matters stand. It seems to me he is growing to monopolize Faith, rather."

"Oh," replied Mrs. Gartney, "there is nothing of that! You know what nurse told us, last evening. It isn't quite likely that a man would faint away at the memory of one woman, if his thoughts were turned, the least, in that way, upon another. No, indeed! She is his Sunday scholar, and he treats her always as a very dear young friend. But that is all."

"Maybe. But is it quite safe for her? He is a young man yet, notwithstanding those few gray hairs."

"Oh, Faith has tacitly belonged to Paul Rushleigh these three years!"

Mr. Armstrong heard it all. He turned the next moment, and met his "dear young friend" with the same gentle smile and manner that he always wore toward her, and they walked up the Ridge path, among the trees, together.

A bowlder of rock, scooped into smooth hollows that made pleasant seats, was the goal, usually, of the Ridge walk. Here Faith paused, and Mr. Armstrong made her sit down and rest.

Standing there before her, he began his story.

"One summer—years ago," he said, "I went to the city of New Orleans. I went to bring thence, with me, a dear friend—her who was to have been my wife."

The deep voice trembled, and paused. Faith could not look up, her breath came quickly, and the tears were all but ready.

"She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world.

"The business which took him there detained him until later in the season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And still, important affairs hindered his departure.

"He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier return been possible.

"In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were worded weighted them the more.

"Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which had been sent me—there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him—into plague and death!

"Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! God lets strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what I saw there! Pestilence—death—corruption!

"In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New England woman—a nurse—her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He was dead. Miriam had already sickened—was past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not know me.

"I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock.

"I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last hours. The nurse—Miss Sampson—had been smitten—was dying.

"They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life!

"Since then, God, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied me to find many a chastened joy.

"Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis—it was all he could say then—all they had left him to say, if he would—"I have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your soul earnestness, of Miriam!

"When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, do not forget me!"

A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The other lay in her companion's, who had taken it as he uttered these last words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, between the two, held Roger Armstrong's reverently, while the fair, tearful face lifted itself to his.

"I do thank you so!" And that was all.

Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them to herself, into a great beatitude! She never thought of more—scarcely whether more could be. This great, noble, purified, God-loving soul that stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her thus!

She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness to all other love, as one does from a prayer!