" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from
the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on.

Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief.
She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free.

"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us give
me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee then, but
it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and pity I feel
could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other feelings. I
would still do anything for thee except that which thee cannot ask, as
thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the gulf between us so
wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep for thee and pray for
thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still precious in the sight of
the Lord. Fare thee well!"

He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears
and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up
and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father
and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was
spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question
had visited Asenath's tongue.

She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which
give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and
transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never blurred
in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers under the
bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant music to the
new voice of love; the other a rainy street, with a lost, reckless man
leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face with eyes whose
unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened the beauty of the
earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence of God.

V.

Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the
Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his
marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years
Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by
an unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally
determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to manage
it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, and
depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show
of tenderness, he was, in t