here are they?" said Holden.

"They go in that direcshum," answered Felix, pointing with his chin,
across the field.

"How long ago?"

"Ever so long; Oh, good Mr. Holden, do hurry," said Felix, whose
anxieties made him magnify the progress of time.

Holden asked no further questions, but increasing his speed, hastened
on an Indian lope in the direction indicated, following the traces in
the grass.

As he hurried on, his dream occurred to him. The features of the
country were the same as of that he had traversed in his sleep:
he remembered also, that the day of the week was Friday. As these
thoughts came into his mind, they stimulated him to press on with
increased speed, as if something momentous depended upon the swiftness
of his motions. It was well he did so. A moment later might have been
too late; a moment more and he might have seen the fair creature he
so loved weltering in her blood. Too late to stay the uplifted hand
of the deranged man with his own, he had uttered the cry which had
arrested the knife.

Holden stooped down, and taking into his arms the insensible form of
Faith, bore her to the brook. Here he lavishly sprinkled her face with
the cool water, and sobs and deep drawn sighs began, after a time, to
herald a return to consciousness. Armstrong followed, and as he saw
the pale girl lying like a corpse in the arms of Holden, he threw
himself down by her side upon the grass, and took her passive hand,
which lay cold in his own.

"She is not dead, is she?" said he. "O, say to me, she is not dead.
I thought I heard a voice from heaven--I expected to hear it--which
commanded me to forbear. Did I disobey the angel? Was he too late?
Too late, too late, too late! Oh, she is dead, dead. My Faith, my
daughter, my darling! O, God, it was cruel in thee!"

But presently, as we have said, sighs and sobs began to heave the
bosom of Faith, and as she opened her languid eyes their soft light
fell upon the face of her father.

With a cry of delight he sprang from the ground. "She is not dead," he
exclaimed, "she is alive! I knew it would be so. I knew it was only
a trial of my faith. I knew God would send his angel. He has angels
enough in heaven. What does he want of Faith yet? My darling," he
said, getting down and leaning the head of his daughter upon his
bosom, "God did not mean it in earnest. He only meant to try us. It is
all over now, and hereafter we shall be so happy!"

Holden, who, when Faith bega