ingered involuntarily over the third verse, a sigh burst from Raby's
lips.

"Landscape of fear! yet, weary heart,
Thou need'st not in thy gloom depart,
Nor fainting turn to seek thy distant home:
Sweetly thy sickening throbs are eyed
By the kind Saviour at thy side;
For healing and for balm e'en now thy hour is come."

"Oh, that it were come for both of us," muttered Raby, in a tone so
husky with pain that Margaret stopped.

"You are thinking of Crystal," she said, softly, leaning toward him
with a face full of sympathy. "That verse was beautiful; it reminded
me of our child at once"--but as he hid his face in his hands without
answering her, she sat motionless in her place, and for a long time
there was silence between them.

But Margaret's heart was full, and she was saying to herself:

"Why need I have said that, as though he ever forgot her? poor
Raby--poor, unhappy brother--forget her! when every night in the
twilight I see him fold his hands as though in prayer, and in the
darkness can hear him whisper, 'God bless my darling and bring her
home to me again.'"

"Margaret!"

"Yes, dear;" but as she turned quickly at the beseeching tone in which
her name was uttered, a smile came to her lips, for Raby's hand was
feeling in his inner breast-pocket, and she knew well what that action
signified; in another moment he had drawn out a letter and had placed
it in Margaret's outstretched palm. Ever since this letter had reached
them about two months ago, each Sunday the same silent request had
been made to her, and each time, as now, she had taken it without
hesitation or comment, and had read it slowly from beginning to end.

The envelope bore the Leeds postmark, and the letter itself was
evidently written hurriedly in a flowing, girlish hand.

"MY DEAREST MARGARET," it began, "I feel to-night as though I
must write to you; sometimes the homesickness is so
bitter--the longing so intense to see your dear face
again--that I can hardly endure it; there are times when the
restlessness is so unendurable that I can not sit still and
bear it--when I feel as though I have but one wish in the
world, just to feel your arms round me again, and hear from
your lips that I am forgiven, and then lie down and die.

"You suffer, too, you say, in the one letter that has reached
me: I have ever overshadowed your happiness. You and Raby are
troubling your kind hearts about m