doing
great good to his children."

She dropped her hands, the tender lids covered again those wondrous
eyes, and we sat as if spell-bound, wrapt in holy thought.

"Let us pray," said Mr. Davis, and we knelt together.

Never had I heard him pray like this, and I shall ever remember the last
sentences he uttered; "Father, if what thy handmaid says be true, give
me, oh, I pray thee, of this bread to eat, that my whole duty may be
performed, and when thou shall call him hither, may thy servant depart
in peace."

Mr. Davis shook hands with us all just as the clock tolled nine, and to
Clara he said:

"Sister, angels have anointed thee; do thy work."

This was a visit such as might never occur again. Truly and strangely
our life was a panorama all these days. I dreamed all night of Clara and
her thoughts, and through her eyes that were bent on me in that realm of
dreams, I read chapters of the life to come.

CHAPTER XIV.

LOUIS RETURNS.

It would be now only a few days to Mr. Benton's return, and I dreaded
it, never thinking of him without a shudder passing over me; Aunt Hildy
would have called it "nervous creepin'." I felt that this was wrong, and
especially so since I knew I was thus hindered in the well-doing for
which I so longed.

"Happiness comes from the inner room," said Aunt Hildy; "silver and gold
and acres of land couldn't make a blind man see."

Her comparisons were apt, and her ideas pebbles of wisdom, clear and
white, gathered from experience and polished by suffering. Both she and
Clara were books which I read daily. How differently they were written!
and then how different from both was the wisdom of a mother whose light
seemed daily to grow more beautiful. It seemed when I thought of it as
if no one had ever such good teachers. And now if I could only break
these knots which had been tangled through Mr. Benton's misunderstanding
of me, there seemed no reasonable excuse for not progressing. Church
affairs had been happily regulated, so far as Mr. Davis and our few
nearer friends were concerned, and the sermon on good deeds which he
preached the Sabbath after his visit to us was more than worthy of him.

Clara said, "He talked of things he really knew; facts are more
beautiful than fancies."

"And stand by longer," added Aunt Hildy.

Louis was to come on the first of July, his mother not deeming it
advisable for him to study through that month; but Mr. Benton preceded
him and came th