lf to
be, for the strong, firm voice belonged to Dr. Douglass!

An hour later Dr. Van Anden was pacing up and down the long parlor,
with quick, excited steps, waiting for he hardly knew what, when a
shadow fell between him and the gaslight. He glanced up suddenly, and
his eyes met Dr. Douglass, who had placed himself in precisely the
same position in which he had stood when they had met there before.
Dr. Van Anden started forward, and the two gentlemen clasped hands
as they had never in their lives done before. Dr. Douglass broke the
beautiful silence first with earnestly spoken words:

"Doctor, will you forgive all the past?"

And Dr. Van Anden answered: "Oh, my brother in Christ!"

As for Ester, she prayed, in her clothes-press, thankfully for Dr.
Douglass, more hopefully for Sadie, and knew not that a corner of the
poor little letter which had slipped from Julia's hand and floated
down the stream one summer morning, thereby causing her such a
miserable, _miserable_ day, was lying at that moment in Dr. Douglass'
note-book, counted as the most precious of all his precious bits of
paper. Verily "His ways are not as our ways."

CHAPTER XXV.

SADIE SURROUNDED.

"Oh," said Sadie, with a merry toss of her brown curls, "_don't_ waste
any more precious breath over me, I beg. I'm an unfortunate case, not
worth struggling for. Just let me have a few hours of peace once more.
If you'll promise not to say 'meeting' again to me, I'll promise not
to laugh at you once after this long drawn-out spasm of goodness has
quieted, and you have each descended to your usual level once more."

"Sadie," said Ester, in a low, shocked tone, "_do_ you think we are
all hypocrites, and mean not a bit of this?"

"By _no_ means, my dear sister of charity, at least not all of you.
I'm a firm believer in diseases of all sorts. This is one of the
violent kind of highly contagious diseases; they must run their
course, you know. I have not lived in the house with two learned
physicians all this time without learning that fact, but I consider
this very nearly at its height, and live in hourly expectation of the
'turn.' But, my dear, I don't think you need worry about me in the
least. I don't believe I'm a fit subject for such trouble. You know
I never took whooping-cough nor measles, though I have been exposed a
great many times."

To this Ester only replied by a low, tremulous, "Don't, Sadie,
please."

Sadie turned a pair of mirthfu