re bring your wounded hearts--here tell your anguish,
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal!"

A pause followed, and the long-drawn, half-human sigh of the mountain
wind over the chimney seemed to mingle with the wail of the harmonium.
And then, to their thrilled astonishment, a tenor voice, high, clear,
but tenderly passionate, broke like a skylark over their heads in the
lines of the second verse:--

"Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent--fadeless and pure;
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure!"

The hymn was old and familiar enough, Heaven knows. It had been
quite popular at funerals, and some who sat there had had its strange
melancholy borne upon them in time of loss and tribulations, but
never had they felt its full power before. Accustomed as they were to
emotional appeal and to respond to it, as the singer's voice died away
above them, their very tears flowed and fell with that voice. A few
sobbed aloud, and then a voice asked tremulously,--

"Who is it?"

"It's Mr. Hamlin," said Seth quietly. "I've heard him often hummin'
things before."

There was another silence, and the voice of Deacon Stubbs broke in
harshly,--

"It's rank blasphemy."

"If it's rank blasphemy to sing the praise o' God, not only better than
some folks in the choir, but like an angel o' light, I wish you'd do a
little o' that blaspheming on Sundays, Mr. Stubbs."

The speaker was Mrs. Stubbs, and as Deacon Stubbs was a notoriously bad
singer the shot told.

"If he's sincere, why does he stand aloof? Why does he not join us?"
asked the parson.

"He hasn't been asked," said Seth quietly. "If I ain't mistaken this yer
gathering this evening was specially to see how to get rid of him."

There was a quick murmur of protest at this. The parson exchanged
glances with the deacon and saw that they were hopelessly in the
minority.

"I will ask him myself," said Mrs. Rivers suddenly.

"So do, Sister Rivers; so do," was the unmistakable response.

Mrs. Rivers left the room and returned in a few moments with a handsome
young man, pale, elegant, composed, even to a grave indifference.
What his eyes might have said was another thing; the long lashes were
scarcely raised.

"I don't mind playing a little," he said quietly to Mrs. Rivers, as if
continuing a conversation, "but you'll have to let me trust my memory."

"Then y