night long, once, with some tired, fearful ones 'toiling in
rowing;' but in the fourth watch came Christ and help to them. It is
nigh hand--the 'fourth watch'--with you; so be cheerful."

Yet it was the evening of the sixth day before Ducie and Stephen
returned. It was still raining heavily, and Ducie only waited a moment
or two at the rectory gate. Charlotte was amazed to see the old
clergyman hasten through the plashing shower to speak to her. "Surely
Ducie's business must have a great deal of interest to the rector,
mother: he has gone out to speak to her, and such weather too."

"Ducie was always a favorite with him. I hope, now that her affairs have
been attended to, ours may receive some care."

Charlotte answered only by a look of sympathy. It had seemed to her a
little hard that their urgent need must wait upon Ducie's business; that
Stephen should altogether leave them in their extremity; that her
anxious inquiries and suggestions, her plans and efforts about their
new home, should have been so coldly received, and so positively put
aside until Ducie and Stephen came back. And she had a pang of jealousy
when she saw the rector, usually so careful of his health, hasten with
slippered feet and uncovered head, through the wet, chilling atmosphere,
to speak to them.

He came back with a radiant face, however, and Charlotte could hear him
moving about his study; now rolling out a grand march of musical Greek
syllables from Homer or Euripides, anon breaking into some familiar
verse of Christian song. And, when tea was served, he went up-stairs for
the ladies, and escorted them to the table with a manner so beaming and
so happily predictive that Charlotte could not but catch some of its
hopeful spirit.

Just as they sat down to the tea-table, the wet, weary travellers
reached Up-Hill. With a sigh of pleasure and content, Ducie once more
passed into its comfortable shelter; and never had it seemed to her such
a haven of earthly peace. Her usually placid face bore marks of strong
emotion; she was physically tired; and Stephen was glad to see her among
the white fleeces of his grandfather's big chair, with her feet
outstretched to the blazing warmth of the fire, and their cosey
tea-service by her side. Always reticent with him, she had been very
tryingly so on their journey. No explanation of it had been given; and
he had been permitted to pass his time among the looms in Ireland's
mill, while she and the lawyer we