heepfold," and to be a thief and
a robber, even of life!

These were strange thoughts. Desire Ledwith was a strange girl.

But into the midst there crept one comfort; there was one glimpse
out of the darkness into the daylight.

Kenneth Kincaid came in often to see them,--to inquire; just now he
had frequent business in the city; he brought ferns and flowers,
that Dorris gathered and filled into baskets, fresh and damp with
moss.

Dorris was a dear friend; she dwelt in the life and the brightness;
she reached forth and gathered, and turned and ministered again. The
ferns and flowers were messages; leaves out of God's living Word,
that she read, found precious, and sent on; apparitions, they
seemed standing forth to sense, and making sweet, true signs from
the inner realm of everlasting love and glory.

And Kenneth,--Desire had never lost out of her heart those
words,--"Be strong,--be patient, dear!"

He did not speak to her of himself; he could not demand
congratulation from her grief; he let it be until she should somehow
learn, and of her own accord, speak to him.

So everybody let her alone, poor child, to her hurt.

The news of the engagement was no Boston news; it was something that
had occurred, quietly enough, among a few people away up in Z----.
Of the persons who came in,--the few remaining in town,--nobody
happened to know or care. The Ripwinkleys did, of course; but Mrs.
Ripwinkley remembered last winter, and things she had read in
Desire's unconscious, undisguising face, and aware of nothing that
could be deepening the mischief now, thinking only of the sufficient
burden the poor child had to bear, thought kindly, "better not."

Meanwhile Mrs. Ledwith was dwelling more and more upon the European
plan. She made up her mind, at last, to ask Uncle Titus. When all
was well, she would not seem to break a compact by going away
altogether, so soon, to leave him; but now,--he would see the
difference; perhaps advise it. She would like to know what he would
advise. After all that had happened,--everything so changed,--half
her family abroad,--what could she do? Would it not be more prudent
to join them, than to set up a home again without them, and keep
them out there? And all Helena's education to provide for, and
everything so cheap and easy there, and so dear and difficult here?

"Now, tell me, truly, uncle, should you object? Should you take it
at all hard? I never meant to have left you, after all y