one long ago."

They passed out, and the little gate swung to its place. The dead at
Beersheba were left alone again. Left to their tranquil slumbers.
Tranquil? Aye, it is only the living who are eager and unhappy.

Down the shadowy road they passed, those two whose lives had met, and
mingled, and parted again. Those two so necessary to each other, and
who, despite the necessity, must touch hands and part.

'Tis said God makes for every human soul a counterpart, a soul-helper.
If this be so, then is it true that every soul must find its
counterpart, since God does not work by half, and knows no bungling in
His work. That other self is _somewhere_,--on this earth, or else in
some other sphere. The souls are separated, perhaps, by death, or even
by some human agency. What of that? Soul will seek soul; will find its
counterpart and perform its work, its own half share, though death and
vast eternity should roll between.

They passed on, those two wishing for and needing each the other.
Wishing until God heard, and made the wish a prayer, and answered it,
in His own time and manner.

At the crossing of the roads where one turns off to Dan, the mountain
preacher's little cabin stood before them. Nothing, and yet it had a
bearing on their lives. On his, at all events.

Before the door, leaning upon the little low gate, an old man with
white hair and beard was watching the gambols of two children playing
with a large dog. The cabin, old and weatherworn, the man, the
tumbledown appearance of things generally, formed a strange contrast
with the magnificence of nature visible all around. To Donald, with
his southern ideas of ease and elegance, there was something repulsive
in the scene. But the woman was evidently more charitable.

"Good evening, parson," she called, "we are going over to Dan to watch
the moon rise."

"Yes, yes," said the old man. "An' hadn't ye better leave the gun,
sir? There's no use luggin' that to Dan. An' ye'll find it here 'ginst
you come back."

"Why, we're going back another route," they told him; not dreaming
what that route would be.

"You have a goodly country, parson," said Donald, "and so near heaven
one ought to find peace here."

"It be not plentiful," said the old man. "An' man be born to trouble
as the sparks go upward. But all be bretherin, by the grace o' God,
an' bound alike for Canaan."

They passed on, bearing the old man's meaning in their hearts. All
bound upon one common