n, who is the host of the
French strangers.

"Square, have they ordered a moniment yit for Miss Maverick?"

"Not that I 'm aware of, Deacon."

"Waal, my nevvy's got a good slab of Varmont marble, which he ordered
for his fust wife; but the old folks did n't like it, and it's in his
barn on the heater-piece. 'T ain't engraved, nor nothin'. If it should
_suit_ the Mavericks, I dare say they could git it tol'able low."

LXVI.

Reuben is still floating between death and life. There is doubt whether
the master of the long course or of the short course will win. However
that may be, his consciousness has returned; and it has been with a
great glow of gratitude that the poor Doctor has welcomed that look of
recognition in his eye,--the eye of Rachel!

He is calm,--he knows all. That calmness which had flashed into his soul
when last he saw the serene face of his fellow-voyager upon that mad sea
is _his_ still.

The poor father had been moved unwontedly by that unconsciousness which
was blind to all his efforts at spiritual consolation; but he is not
less moved when he sees reason stirring again,--a light of eager inquiry
in those eyes fearfully sunken, but from their cavernous depths seeing
farther and more keenly than ever.

"Adele's mother,--was she lost?" He whispers it to the Doctor; and Miss
Eliza, who is sewing yonder, is quickened into eager listening.

"Lost! my son, lost! Lost, I apprehend, in the other world as well as
this, I fear the true light never dawned upon her."

A faint smile--as of one who sees things others do not see--broke over
the face of Reuben. "'T is a broad light, father; it reaches beyond our
blind reckoning."

There was a trustfulness in his manner that delighted the Doctor. "And
you see it, my son?--Repentance, Justification by Faith, Adoption,
Sanctification, Election?"

"Those words are a weariness to me, father; they suggest methods,
dogmas, perplexities. Christian hope, pure and simple, I love better."

The Doctor is disturbed; he cannot rightly understand how one who seems
inspired by so calm a trust--the son of his own loins too--should find
the authoritative declarations of the divines a weariness. Is it not
some subtle disguise of Satan, by which his poor boy is being cheated
into repose?

Of course the letter of Adele, which had been so long upon its way, Miss
Eliza had handed to Reuben after such time as her caution suggested, and
she had explained to him its long de