he smiled, and laid her hand upon her breast.

"The doctor calls it trouble--trouble here. But it may be helped;
and there is a man in Philadelphia who treats such ailments with
great skill. My cousin-in-law, Lydia Froke, will receive me at her
house for this winter, if I will come and try what he can do. Thee
sees: I suppose I ought to go."

"And Desire knows nothing?"

"How could I tell the child, until I saw my way? Now, can thee
think?"

Rachel Froke repeated her simple question with an earnestness as if
nothing were between them at this moment but the one thing to care
for and provide. She waited for no word of personal pity or sympathy
to come first. She had grown quite used to this fact that she had
faced for herself, and scarcely remembered that it must be a pain to
Miss Kirkbright for her sake to hear it.

It was hard even for Miss Kirkbright to feel it at once as a fact,
looking in the fair, placid, smiling face that spoke of neither
complaint nor pain nor fear; though a thrill had gone through her at
the first word and gesture which conveyed the terrible perception,
and had made her pale and grave.

"Must it be a servant to do mere servant's work; or could some nice
young person, under Frendely's direction, relieve her of the actual
care that you have taken, and keep things in the kitchen as they
are?"

"That is precisely the best thing, if we could be sure," said
Rachel.

"Then I think perhaps I came here with an errand straight to you,
though I had no knowledge of it in coming," said Miss Kirkbright.

"That looks like the Lord's leading," said Rachel Froke. "There is
always some sign to believe by."

Miss Euphrasia took out Sylvie's letter, as the best way of telling
the story, and put it into Rachel Froke's hand. She did not feel it
any breach of confidence to do so. Breach of confidence is letting
strange air in upon a tender matter. The self-same atmosphere, the
self-same temperature,--these do not harm or change anything. It is
only widening graciously that which the confidence came for, to let
it touch a heart tuned to the celestial key, ready with the same
response of understanding. There are friends one can trust with
one's self so; sure that only by true and inward channels the word,
the thought, shall pass. Gossip--betrayal--sends from hand to hand,
from mouth to mouth; tosses about our sacredness, or the
misinterpreted sign of it, on the careless surface. From heart to
heart it may