d it since you've been here this time?"

"Once only."

"Were there any changes?" she asked.

"A few," I said. "There is another entrance to the tower than by the
door, Miss Axtell."

Slowly the lady dropped back to the pillows whence she had arisen from
the disturbing dream. She did not move again for many minutes; then it
was a few low-spoken words that summoned me to her side.

"I know there is another entrance to the tower," she said; "but I did
not think that any one else knew of it. Who told you?"

"Excuse me from answering, if you please," I said, unwilling to excite
her more, for I knew that the fever was rising rapidly.

"Who knows of this besides you? You don't mind telling me that much?"

"No one knows it, I think; no person told me, and I have told no one.
You seem to have more fever; can you not sleep?"

"Not with all this equinoctial storm raging, and the tide you told me of
coming up with the wind."

She looked decidedly worse. Mr. Axtell let her have her own way. I
thought it wise to follow his leading, and I asked,--

"What tide do you mean? You cannot hear the sea, and it isn't time for
the equinoctial gale."

This question seemed to have quieted Miss Axtell beyond thought of
reply. She did not speak again until the Sabbath-day had begun. Then, at
the very point where she had ceased, she recommenced.

"It is a pity to let the sea in on the fertile fields of your young
life," she said; "but this tide,--it is not that that is now flowing in
on the far-away beach of Redcliff. It is the tide of emotion, that _some
one day_ in life begins to rise in the human heart,--and, oh, what a
strange, wondrous thing it is! There are Bay-of-Fundy tides, and the
uniform tides, and the tideless waters that rest around Pacific Isles;
and no mortal knoweth the cause of their rise or fall. So in human
hearts: some must endure the great throbbing surges that are so hard
coming against one poor heart with nothing but the earth to rest upon,
and yet _must stand fast_; then there are the many, the blessed
congregation of hearts, that are only stirred by moderate, even-flowing
emotions, that never rise over a tide-line, behind which the
congregation are quite secure, and stand and censure the souls striving
and toiling in waves that they only look upon, but never--no,
never--feel. Is this right, Miss Percival?"

"It seems not," I said; "but the tideless hearts, what of them?"

"Oh, they are the hardest of all.