only, but _filled up with
something_; more than that, a future which should be a long
thank-offering to God for this great mercy He had shown her, this great
blessing He had given her back from the grave; a future in which,
perhaps, they two who were so dear to each other, should seek Him
together--a future that he could bless to them both.

Peace quite understood the look with which she turned at last, half
sobbing, to kiss her good-bye.

"I _must_ go,--it is very late. Thank you, Peace. Thank you as long as
I live."

She looked back in closing the door, to see the quiet face that lay so
patiently on the pillow, to see the stillness of the folded hands, to
see the last, rare smile.

She wondered, half guessing the truth, if she should ever see it again.
She never did.

They were all wondering what had become of her, when she came into the
house.

"We start in half an hour, Joyce, my dear," said her father, catching
her up in his arms for a kiss;--he almost always kissed her now when
she had been fifteen minutes out of his sight,--"We start in half an
hour, and you won't have any more than time to eat your lunch."

Mrs. Breynton had spread one of her very very best lunches on the
dining-room table, and Joy's chair was ready and waiting for her, and
everybody stood around, in that way people will stand, when a guest is
going away, not knowing exactly what to do or what to say, but looking
very sober. And very sober they felt; they had all learned to love Joy
in this year she had spent among them, and it was dreary enough to see
her trunks packed and strapped in the entry, and her closet shelves
upstairs empty, and all little traces of her about the house vanishing
fast.

"Come along," said Gypsy in a savage undertone, "Come and eat, and let
the rest stay out here. I've hardly set eyes on you all the morning. I
must have you all myself now."

"Oh hum!" said Joy, attempting a currant tart, and throwing it down with
one little semi-circular bite in it. "So I'm really off, and this is the
very last time I shall sit at this table."

"Hush up, if you please!" observed Gypsy, winking hard, "just eat your
tart."

Joy cut off a delicate mouthful of the cold tongue, and then began to
look around the room.

"The last time I shall see Winnie's blocks, and that little patch of
sunshine on the machine, and the big Bible on the book-case!--Oh, how I
shall think about them all nights, when I'm sitting down by the grate