ou." Then she turned away.

And with willing feet Annie Bermond went forth upon her blessed errand.
She soon found her uncle. He was sitting beneath the shade of the old
pines, and he seemed to be in very deep thought. Annie got down on the
grass beside him, and laid her soft cheek upon his sunburnt hand. How
gently he spoke--

"What did you come here for, sweet bird?"

"Because I love you so much, Uncle John; that is the reason; but won't
you tell me why you look so very sad and grave? I wish I knew your
thoughts just now."

"And if you did, fairy, they would not make you any prettier or better
than you are."

"I wonder if they do you any good, uncle?" she quickly replied; but her
companion made no answer; he only smiled.

Let me write here what John Greylston's tongue refused to say. Those
thoughts, indeed, had done him good; they were tender, self-upbraiding,
loving thoughts, mingled, all the while, with touching memories,
mournful glimpses of the past--the days of his sore bereavement, when
the coffin-lid was first shut down over Ellen Day's sweet face, and
he was smitten to the earth with anguish. Then Margaret's sympathy and
love, so beautiful in its strength, and unselfishness, so unwearying and
sublime in its sacrifices, became to him a stay and comfort. And had she
not, for his sake, uncomplainingly given up the best years of her life,
as it seemed? Had her love ever faltered? Had it ever wavered in its
sweet endeavours to make him happy? These memories, these thoughts,
closed round John Greylston like a circle of rebuking angels. Not for
the first time were they with him when Annie found him beneath the old
pines. Ever since that morning of violent and unjust anger they had
been struggling in his heart, growing stronger, it seemed, every hour
in their reproachful tenderness. Those loving, silent attentions to his
wishes John Greylston had noted, and they rankled like sharp thorns
in his soul. He was not worthy of them; this he knew. How he loathed
himself for his sharp and angry words! He had it in his heart to tell
his sister this, but an overpowering shame held him back.

"If I only knew how Madge felt towards me," he said many times to
himself, "then I could speak; but I have been such a brute. She can
do nothing else but repulse me;" and this threw around him that
chill reserve which kept Margaret's generous and forgiving heart at a
distance.

Even every-day life has its wonders, and perhaps not