es' come an' bress de poor chile an' sabe him!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

DAYS OF CALM.

He found it at last,--the peace which comes after a long, weary,
despairing struggle. But it was not easily won. It seemed to Trafford
as if God had hidden himself in a thick, awful darkness, through which
not the faintest ray of light or hope could glimmer upon his heavy,
despairing heart. He sought for him as one who, feeling himself in
the grasp of Death, would seek for Life. He had long rejected him and
put him away; now, in his hour of anguish and extremity, his face and
his peace were hard to find. Never had such utter silence reigned in
the stone house since its occupancy as reigned there now. Hagar kept
mostly within her own province, and Trafford sat day after day in the
dining-room, hardly stirring from thence. He had not entered the
library since the night of the shipwreck, neither had Hagar stepped
within the room, where all Noll's books and shells and treasures
gathered from the sea lay, and where everything hinted of the sunny,
joyous life which once had made the great room cheerful. Neither
looked within, as if they dreaded to recall the dear and pleasant
vision of the curly-haired boy who had lived and studied there. These
were the days in which Trafford groped in darkness and despondency.
Hagar set the table by his side, and brought him his meals, and
carried away the untasted viands, with much sighing and regret, but,
nevertheless, with joy in her heart.

"'Pears as ef 'twas a drefful t'ing fur de poor chile ter be suff'rin'
so," she would sigh to herself as she watched his worn and heavy face
on her passages through the room; "but Hagar's t'ankful 'nough to see
it, 'cause de poor chile'll find de Lord bimeby. Bress de Lord! Mas'r
Dick'll find him some time!"

A long and weary week passed away. Without, the world had never been
fairer, nor the sea lovelier. No storms lashed it, and the great world
of waves glittered calm and untroubled under the sun, with no hint of
death or woe in its purple evening lights or its bright morning
gleams.

Then, after this long seeking, a faint hope began to dawn in
Trafford's heart. He did not dare to give it heed or trust at
first,--he who had been in despair so long,--and when, at last, he
began to put forth feeble, trembling anticipations of the peace and
joy which might come when God's smile and forgiveness shone upon him,
this little ray of hope broadened and grew