enables me to wait until the end, when I go, into the Unknown, to meet
her. Child, I do not know if there be a Heaven, but if God gives me
her, and her love, as I knew it once, I shall not ask for more."

Unable to say more, for the tears, Thorpe stumbled out of the room.
Araminta's own eyes were wet and her heart was strangely tender to all
the world. Miss Evelina, the kitten, Mr. Thorpe, Doctor Ralph--even
Aunt Hitty--were all included in a wave of unspeakable tenderness.

Never stopping to question, Araminta sped out of the house, her feet
following where her heart led. Past the crossroads, to the right, down
into the village, across the tracks, then sharply to the left, up to
Doctor Dexter's, where, only a few weeks before, she had gone in the
hope of seeing Doctor Ralph, Araminta ran like some young Atalanta,
across whose path no golden apples were thrown.

The door was open, and she rushed in, unthinking, turning by instinct
into the library, where Ralph sat alone, leaning his head upon his hand.

"Doctor Ralph!" she cried, "I've come!"

He looked up, then started forward. One look into her glorified face
told him all that he needed to know. "Undine," he said, huskily, "have
you found your soul?"

"I don't know what I've found," sobbed Araminta, from the shelter of
his arms, "but I've come, to stay with you always, if you'll let me!"

"If I'll let you," murmured Ralph, kissing away her happy tears. "You
little saint, it's what I want as I want nothing else in the world."

"I know what it is to be married," said Araminta, after a little, her
grave, sweet eyes on his. "I asked Mr. Thorpe to-night and he told me.
It's to be always with the one you love, and never to mind what anybody
else says or does. It's to help each other bear everything and be
twice as happy because you're together. It means that somebody will
always help you when things go wrong, and there'll always be something
you can lean on. You'll never be afraid of anything, because you're
together. My mother was married, your mother was married, and I've
found out that Aunt Hitty's mother was married, too.

"And Mr. Thorpe--he would have been married, but she died. He told me
and he showed me her picture, and he says that it doesn't make any
difference to be dead, when you love anybody, and that Heaven, for him,
will be where she waits for him and puts her hand in his again. He was
crying, and so was I, but it's because he has her an