A. D. T. Whitney "'Tis as if the benignant Heaven Had a new revelation given, And written it out with gems; For the golden tops of the elms And the burnished bronze of the ash And the scarlet lights that flash From the sumach's points of flame, Like blazonings on a scroll Spell forth an illumined Name For the reading of the soul!"

It is of no use to dispute about the Indian summer. I never found two people who could agree as to the time when it ought to be here, or upon a month and day when it should be decidedly too late to look for it. It keeps coming. After the equinoctial, which begins to be talked about with the first rains of September, and isn't done with till the sun has measured half a dozen degrees of south declination, all the pleasant weather is Indian summer—away on to Christmastide. For my part, I think we get it now and then, little by little, as "the kingdom" comes. That every soft, warm, mellow, hazy, golden day, like each fair, fragrant life, is a part and outcrop of it; though weeks of gale and frost, or ages of cruel worldliness and miserable sin may lie between.

It was an Indian summer day, then; and it was in October.

Faith and Mr. Armstrong walked over the brook, and round by Pasture Rocks, to the "little chapel," as Faith had called it, since the time, last winter, when she and Glory had met the minister there, in the still, wonderful, pure beauty that enshrined it on that "diamond morning."

The elms that stood then, in their icy sheen, about the meadows, like great cataracts of light, were soft with amber drapery, now; translucent in each leaf with the detained sunshine of the summer; and along the borders of the wood walk, scarlet flames of sumach sprang out, vivid, from among the lingering green; and birches trembled with their golden plumes; and bronzed ash boughs, and deep crimsons and maroons and chocolate browns and carbuncle red that crowned the oaks with richer and intenser hues, made up a wealth and massiveness of beauty wherein eye and thought reveled and were sated.

Over and about all, the glorious October light, and the dreamy warmth that was like a palpable love.

They stood on the crisp moss carpet of the "halfway rock"—the altar crag behind them, with its cherubim that waved illumined wings of tenderer radiance now—and gazed over the broad outspread of marvelous color; and thought of the summer that had come and gone since they had stood there, last, together, and of the beauty that had breathed alike on earth and into life, for them.

"Faith, darling! Tell me your thought," said Roger Armstrong.

"This was my thought," Faith answered, slowly. "That first sermon you preached to us—that gave me such a hope, then—that comes up to me so, almost as a warning, now! The poor—that were to have the kingdom! And then, those other words—'how hardly shall they who have riches enter in!' And I am so rich! It frightens me."

"Entire happiness does make one tremble. Only, if we feel God in it, and stand but the more ready for His work, we may be safe."

"His work—yes," Faith answered. "But now he only gives me rest. It seems as if, somehow, I were not worthy of a hard life. As if all things had been made too easy for me. And I had thought, so, of some great and difficult thing to do."

Then Faith told him of the oracle that, years ago, had first wakened her to the thought of what life might be; of the "high and holy work" that she had dreamed of, and of her struggles to fulfill it, feebly, in the only ways that as yet had opened for her.

"And now—just to receive all—love, and help, and care—and to rest, and to be so wholly happy!"

"Believe, darling, that we are led, through all. That the oil of joy is but as an anointing for a nobler work. It is only so I dare to think of it. We shall have plenty to do, Faithie! And, perhaps, to bear. It will all be set before us, in good time."

"But nothing can be hard to do, any more. That is what makes me almost feel unworthy. Look at Nurse Sampson. Look at Glory. They have only their work, and the love of God to help them in it. And I—! Oh, I am not poor any longer. The words don't seem to be for me."

"Let us take them with their double edge of truth, then. Holding ourselves always poor, in sight of the infinite spiritual riches of the kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, my little one!"

"It is so hard not to be content!" whispered Faith, as the strong, manly arm held her, in its shelter, close beside the noble, earnest heart.

"I think," said Roger Armstrong, afterwards, as they walked down over the fragrant pathway of fallen pine leaves, "that I have never known an instance of one more evidently called, commissioned, and prepared for a good work in the world, than Glory. Her whole life has been her education for it. It is not without a purpose, when a soul like hers is left to struggle up through such externals of circumstance. We can love and help her in it, Faith; and do something, in our way, for her, as she will do, in hers, for others."

"Oh, yes!" assented Faith, impulsively. "I have wished—" but there she stopped.

"Am I to hear no more?" asked Mr. Armstrong, presently. "Have I not a right to insist upon the wish?"

"I forgot what I was coming to," said Faith, blushing deeply. "I spoke of it, one day, to mother. And she said it was a thing I couldn't decide for myself, now. That some one else would be concerned, as well as I."

"And some one else will be sure to wish as you do. Only there may be a wisdom in waiting. Faithie—I have never told you yet—will you be frightened if I tell you now—that I am not a poor man, as the world counts poverty? My friend, of whom you know, in those terrible days of the commencing pestilence, having only his daughter and myself to care for, made his will; in provision against whatever might befall them there. By that will—through the fearful sorrow that made it effective—I came into possession of a large property. Your little inheritance, Faithie, goes into your own little purse for private expenditures or charities. But for the present, as it seems to me, Glory has ample means for all that it is well for her to undertake. By and by, as she gains in years and in experience, you will have it in your power to enlarge her field of good. 'Miss Henderson's Home' may grow into a wider benefit than even she, herself, foresaw."

Faith was not frightened. These were not the riches that could make her tremble with a dread lest earth should too fully satisfy. This was only a promise of new power to work with; a guarantee that God was not leaving her merely to care for and to rest in a good that must needs be all her own.

"We shall find plenty to do, Faithie!" Mr. Armstrong repeated; and he held her hand in his with a strong pressure that told how the thought of that work to come, and her sweet and entire association in it, leaped along his pulses with a living joy.

Faith caught it; and all fear was gone. She could not shrink from the great blessedness that was laid upon her, any more than Nature could refuse to wear her coronation robes, that trailed their radiance in this path they trod.

Life held them in a divine harmony.

The October sun, that mantled them with warmth and glory; the Indian summer, that transfigured earth about them; all tints—all redolence—all broad beatitude of globe and sky—were none too much to breathe out and make palpable the glad and holy auspice of the hour.

Mr. Gartney had gradually relinquished his half-formed thought of San Francisco. Already the unsettled and threatening condition of affairs in the country had begun to make men feel that the time was not one for new schemes or adventurous changes. Somehow, the great wheels, mercantile and political, had slipped out of their old grooves, and went laboring, as it were, roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably down to some horrible, unknown crash and ruin.

Henderson Gartney, however, was too restless a man to wait, with entire passiveness, the possible turn and issue of things.

Quite strong, again, in health—so great a part of his burden and anxiety lifted from him in the marriages, actual and prospective, of his two daughters—and his means augmented by the sale of a portion of his Western property which he had effected during his summer visit thereto—it was little to be looked for that he should consent to vegetate, idly and quietly, through a second winter at Cross Corners.

The first feeling of some men, apparently, when they have succeeded in shuffling off a load of difficulty, is a sensation of the delightful ease with which they can immediately shoulder another. As when one has just cleared a desk or drawer of rubbish, there is such a tempting opportunity made for beginning to stow away and accumulate again. Well! the principle is an eternal one. Nature does abhor a vacuum.

The greater portion of the ensuing months, therefore, Mr. Gartney spent in New York; whither his wife and children accompanied him, also, for a stay of a few weeks; during which, Faith and her mother accomplished the inevitable shopping that a coming wedding necessitates; and set in train of preparation certain matters beyond the range of Kinnicutt capacity and resource.

Mr. Armstrong, too, was obliged to be absent from his parish for a little time. Affairs of his own required some personal attention. He chose these weeks while the others, also, were away.

It was decided that the marriage should take place in the coming spring; and that then the house at Cross Corners should become the home of Mr. Armstrong and Faith; and that Mr. Gartney should remove, permanently, to New York, where he had already engaged in some incidental and preliminary business transactions. His purpose was to fix himself there, as a shipping and commission merchant, concerning himself, for a large proportion, with California trade.

The house in Mishaumok had been rented for a term of five years. One change prepares the way for another. Things never go back precisely to what they were before.

Mr. Armstrong, after serious thought, had come to this conclusion of accepting the invitation of the Old Parish at Kinnicutt to remain with it as its pastor, because the place itself had become endeared to him for its associations; because, also, it was Faith's home, which she had learned to love and cling to; because she, too, had a work here, in assisting Glory to fulfill the terms of her aunt's bequest; and because, country parish though it was, and a limited sphere, as it might seem, for his means and talents, he saw the way here, not only to accomplish much direct good in the way of his profession, but as well for a wider exercise of power through the channel of authorship; for which a more onerous pastoral charge would not have left him the needful quiet or leisure.

So, with these comings and goings, these happy plans, and helpings and onlookings, the late autumn weeks merged in winter, and days slipped almost imperceptibly by, and Christmas came.

Three little orphan girls had been welcomed into "Miss Henderson's Home." And only one of them had hair that would curl. But Glory gave the other two an extra kiss each, every morning.