ffering, have never loved. All who have loved, have wept.
Christine had given away her heart, it had been bruised and
wounded--but ought she to love her brother less, because he had proved
himself unworthy? If anything could bring him back to her trust, would
it not be the prayers and tears born from her desolation? To regret,
and to desire, between these two emotions the horizons recede; they
are two spiritual levers, by which the soul can work miracles of
grace.

So the days went on in alternating sunshine and storm. The Domine or
Jamie came every day to see if all was well with her. Sometimes Norman
stopped long enough on an evening visit, to talk about Neil and to
wonder over his past and future. For though he had reached New York
safely, they knew little of his life. He said he had found a clerkship
in the general store of a merchant in a small town on the Hudson
River, about sixty miles from New York; but he intimated it was only a
resting place, till he felt ready to go to California. His great
anxiety was to obtain the knowledge of his wife's hiding-place, for he
was sure her brother was determined to keep them apart. And this
conviction was gradually making a reconciliation with her the chief
aim and desire of his unhappy life. He was sure the Domine knew where
she was, and his letters to Christine urged on her constantly a
determined effort to induce him to reveal her residence. Christine had
made three efforts to win the Domine's confidence, and had then
abandoned the attempt as utterly useless.

The herring-fishery with all its preparatory and after duties and
settlements was now quite past, and the school was in full swing
again, and the quiet days of St. Martin's summer were over the land.
All the magnificent flowers of early autumn were dead, but the little
purple daisy of St. Michael filled the hedges, and the crannies of the
moor. In the garden, among the stones of its wall, the mint and the
thyme and the wall flowers still swung in sunny hours, faint ethereal
perfume; but it was like the prayers of the dying, broken and
intermittent, the last offering of the passing autumn. There were gray
and ghostly vapors in the early morning, and the ships went through
them like spirits. The rains sobbed at the windows, and the wind was
weary of the rain. Sometimes the wind got the best of both fog and
rain, then it filled the sails of the ships, and with swelling canvas
they strutted out with the gale.

In the