and hand to hand,--the Gospel appointed for that day.

"What a crowd there'll be in heaven about some people!" said a tall,
good-looking man to Hilary Vireo, in an undertone, as he came up the
sidewalk with him into the edge of these waiting groups.

"May be. There'll be some scattering, I fancy, that we don't look
for. We shall find _all_ our centres there," returned Mr. Vireo,
hastily, as his people closed about him and the hand-shaking began.

Christopher Kirkbright made his way to the stairs, as the passage on
one side became cleared by the drifting of the parish over to the
western door, by which the minister was entering. A little way up he
found his sister, sitting with a young woman in the deep window
ledge at the turn, whence they could look quietly down and watch the
scene. Overhead, the heavy bell swung out slow, intermitted peals,
that thrilled down through all the timbers of the building, and
forth upon the crisp autumn air.

"My brother--Miss Ledwith," said Miss Euphrasia, introducing them.

Desire Ledwith looked up, The intensity that was in her gray eyes
turned full into Christopher Kirkbright's own. It was like the
sudden shifting of a lens through which sun-rays were pouring. She
had been so absorbed with watching and thinking, that her face had
grown keen and earnest without her knowing, as it had been always
wont to do; only it was different from the old way in this,--that
while the other had been eager, asking, unsatisfied, this was simply
deep, intent; a searching outward, that was answered and fed
simultaneously from within and behind; it was the _transmitted_
light by which the face of Moses shone, standing between the Lord
and the people.

She was not beautiful now, any more than she had been as a very
young girl, when we first knew her; in feature, that is, and with
mere outward grace; but her earnestness had so shaped for itself,
with its continual, unthwarted flow, a natural and harmonious outlet
in brow and eyes; in every curve by which the face conforms itself
to that which genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenance
truly radiant of life, hope, purpose. The small, thin, clear cut
nose,--the lip corners dropped with untutored simplicity into a rest
and decision that were better than sparkle and smile,--the coolness,
the strength, that lay in the very tint and tone of her
complexion,--these were all details of character that had asserted
itself. It had changed utterly one