I'm so silly. It seems all the
time as if I were dreaming a real beautiful dream, and when I woke up,
the awful days would come back, and he'd be dead again. I keep wanting
to kiss him and feel of him all the time."

"You poor child!" said Peace, her eyes dimming a little, "how strange it
all has been. How good He's been to you--God."

"I know it. I know He has, Peace. Wasn't it queer how it all came about?
Gypsy says nobody but God could have managed it so, and Auntie says He
must have had some very good reason.

"You see, father was sick all that time in a little out-of-the-way
French town with not a single soul he knew, and nobody to talk English,
and so sick he couldn't write a word--out of his head, he says, all the
time. That's why I didn't hear, nor the firm. Then wasn't it so strange
about that man who was murdered at St. Pierre?--the very same
name--George Breynton, only it was George W. instead of George M.; but
that they didn't find out till afterwards. Poor man! I wonder if _he_
has anybody crying for him over here. Then you know, just as soon as
ever father got well enough to travel, he started straight home. He said
he'd had enough of Europe, and if he ever lived to get home, he wouldn't
go another time without somebody with him. It wasn't so very pleasant,
he said, to come so near dying with nobody round that you knew, and not
to hear a word of your own language. Then, you know, he got into Boston
Saturday, and he hurried straight up here; but the train only went as
far as Rutland, and stopped at midnight. Then, you see, he was so crazy
to see me and let me know he wasn't dead, he couldn't possibly wait; so
he hired a carriage and drove all the way over Sunday. And oh, Peace,
when I saw him out there in the entry!"

"I guess you said your prayers that night," said Peace, smiling.

"I rather guess I did! And Peace, that makes me think"--Joy grew
suddenly very grave; there was an earnest, thoughtful look in her eyes
that Joy's eyes did not have when she first came to Yorkbury; a look
that they had been slowly learning all this year; that they had been
very quickly learning these past few weeks--"When I get home it's going
to be hard--a good many things are going to be hard."

"Yes, I see," said Peace, musingly. Peace always seemed to see just what
other people were living and hoping and fearing, without any words from
them to explain it.

"It's all so different from what it is here. I don't want to