s. Twemlow smiled, when she had left off crying, and said that
she liked the dear child all the better for concluding that Ponga--or
whatever her name was--must of necessity and at the first glance fall
desperately in love with her own Erle. Then the Rector cried, "Oh, to
be sure, that explained it! But he never could have thought of that,
without his wife's assistance."

Two years now, two years of quiet patience, of busy cheerfulness now and
then, and of kindness to others always, had made of Faith Darling a lady
to be loved for a hundred years, and for ever. The sense of her sorrow
was never far from her, yet never brought near to any other by herself;
and her smile was as warm, and her eyes as bright, as if there had never
been a shadow on her youth. To be greeted by her, and to receive her
hand, and one sweet glance of her large goodwill, was enough to make an
old man feel that he must have been good at some time, and a young man
hope that he should be so by-and-by; though the tendency was generally
contented with the hope.

CHAPTER XXXIII

FAREWELL, DANIEL

Thoughtful for others as she always was, this lovely and loveable young
woman went alone, on the morning of the day that was so sorrowful for
her, to bear a little share of an elder lady's sorrow, and comfort her
with hopes, or at any rate with kindness. They had shed tears together
when the bad news arrived, and again when a twelvemonth had weakened
feeble hope; and now that another year had well-nigh killed it in old
hearts too conversant with the cruelties of the world, a little talk, a
tender look, a gentle repetition of things that had been said at least a
hundred times before, might enter by some subtle passage to the cells of
comfort. Who knows how the welted vine leaf, when we give it shade
and moisture, crisps its curves again, and breathes new bloom upon
its veinage? And who can tell how the flagging heart, beneath the cool
mantle of time, revives, shapes itself into keen sympathies again, and
spreads itself congenially to the altered light?

Without thinking about it, but only desiring to do a little good,
if possible, Faith took the private way through her father's grounds
leading to the rectory, eastward of the village. It was scarcely two
o'clock, and the sun was shining, and the air clear and happy, as it can
be in October. She was walking rather fast, for fear of dropping into
the brooding vein, when in the little fir plantation a man