floating over, and so lost.

And the three lives gathered in to themselves, separately, whatsoever
the hour brought to each.

At nine o'clock Aunt Faith came in, took down the great leather-bound
Bible from the corner shelf, and laid it on the table. Glory appeared,
and seated herself beside the door.

For a few moments, the three lives met in the One Great Life that
overarches and includes humanity. Miss Henderson read from the sixth
chapter of St. John.

They were fed with the five thousand.

CHAPTER XII.

A RECONNOISSANCE.

"Then said his Lordship, 'Well God mend all!' 'Nay, Donald, we must
help him to mend it,' said the other."--Quoted by CARLYLE.

"Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in
simplicity and singleness of heart!"--MISS NIGHTINGALE.

"Auntie," said Faith, next morning, when, after some exploring, she had
discovered Miss Henderson in a little room, the very counterpart of the
one she had had her tea in the night before, only that this opened to
the southeast, and hailed the morning sun. "Auntie, will you go over
with me to the Cross Corners house, after breakfast? It's empty, isn't
it?"

"Yes, it's empty. But it's no great show of a house. What do you want to
see it for?"

"Why, it used to be so pretty, there. I'd like just to go into it. Have
you heard of anybody's wanting it yet?"

"No; and I guess nobody's likely to, for one while. Folks don't make
many changes, out here."

"What a bright little breakfast room this is, auntie! And how grand you
are to have a room for every meal!"

"It ain't for the grandeur of it. But I always did like to follow the
sun round. For the most part of the year, at any rate. And this is just
as near the kitchen as the other. Besides, I kind of hate to shut up any
of the rooms, altogether. They were all wanted, once; and now I'm all
alone in 'em."

For Miss Henderson, this was a great opening of the heart. But she
didn't go on to say that the little west room had been her young
brother's, who long ago, when he was just ready for his Master's work in
this world, had been called up higher; and that her evening rest was
sweeter, and her evening reading holier for being holden there; or that
here, in the sunny morning hours, her life seemed almost to roll back
its load of many years, and to set her down beside her mother's knee,
and beneath her mother's gentle tutelage, once more; that on the little
"light stand" in the corn