"But I cannot leave you so!" exclaimed Lois; and she left her seat and sank upon her knees at her friend's side, still clasping the hand that had taken hers. "Dear Mrs. Barclay, there is help."

"If you could give it, there would be, you pretty creature!" said Mrs.

Barclay, with her other hand pushing the beautiful ma.s.ses of red-brown hair right and left from Lois's brow.

"But there is One who can give it, who is stronger than I, and loves you better."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because he has promised. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.'"

Mrs. Barclay said nothing, but she shook her head.

"It is a promise," Lois repeated. "It is a PROMISE. It is the King's promise; and he never breaks his word."

"How do you know, my child? You have never been where I am."

"No," said Lois, "not there. I have never felt just _so_."

"I have had all that life could give. I have had it, and knew I had it.

And it is all gone. There is nothing left."

"There is this left," said Lois eagerly, "which you have not tried."

"What?"

"The promise of Christ."

"My dear, you do not know what you are talking of. Life is in its spring with you."

"But I know the King's promise," said Lois.

"How do you know it?"

"I have tried it."

"But you have never had any occasion to try it, you heart-sound creature!" said Mrs. Barclay, with again a caressing, admiring touch of Lois's brow.

"O, but indeed I have. Not in need like yours--I have never touched _that_--I never felt like that; but in other need, as great and as terrible. And I know, and everybody else who has ever tried knows, that the Lord keeps his word."

"How have you tried?" Mrs. Barclay asked abstractedly.

"I needed the forgiveness of sin," said Lois, letting her voice fall a little, "and deliverance from it."

"_You!_" said Mrs. Barclay.

"I was as unhappy as anybody could be till I got it."

"When was that?"

"Four years ago."

"Are you much different now from what you were before?"

"Entirely."

"I cannot imagine you in need of forgiveness. What had you done?"

"I had done nothing whatever that I ought to have done. I loved only myself,--I mean _first_,--and lived only to myself and my own pleasure, and did my own will."

"Whose will do you now? your grandmother's?"

"Not grandmother's first. I do G.o.d's will, as far as I know it."

"And therefore you think you are forgiven?"

"I don't _think_, I know," said Lois, with a quick breath. "And it is not 'therefore' at all; it is because I am covered, or my sin is, with the blood of Christ. And I love him; and he makes me happy."

"It is easy to make you happy, dear. To me there is nothing left in the world, nor the possibility of anything. That wind is singing a dirge in my ears; and it sweeps over a desert. A desert where nothing green will grow any more!"

The words were spoken very calmly; there was no emotion visible that either threatened or promised tears; a dull, matter-of-fact, perfectly clear and quiet utterance, that almost broke Lois's heart. The water that was denied to the other eyes sprang to her own.

"It was in the wilderness that the people were fed with manna," she said, with a great gush of feeling in both heart and voice. "It was when they were starving and had no food, just then, that they got the bread from heaven."

"Manna does not fall now-a-days," said Mrs. Barclay with a faint smile.

"O yes, it does! There is your mistake, because you do not know. It _does_ come. Look here, Mrs. Barclay--"

She sprang up, went for a Bible which lay on one of the tables, and, dropping on her knees again by Mrs. Barclay's side, showed her an open page.

"Look here--'I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst... This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.' Not die of weariness, nor of anything else."

Mrs. Barclay did look with a little curiosity at the words Lois held before her, but then she put down the book and took the girl in her arms, holding her close and laying her own head on Lois's shoulder.

Whether the words had moved her, Lois could not tell, or whether it was the power of her own affection and sympathy; Mrs. Barclay did not speak, and Lois did not dare add another word. They were still, wrapped in each other's arms, and one or two of Lois's tears wet the other woman's cheek; and there was no movement made by either of them; until the door was suddenly opened and they sprang apart.

"Here's Mr. Midgin," announced the voice of Miss Charity. "Shall he come in? or ain't there time? Of all things, why can't folks choose convenient times for doin' what they have to do! It pa.s.ses me. It's because it's a sinful world, I suppose. But what shall I tell him? to go about his business, and come New Year's, or next Fourth of July?"

"You do not want to see him now?" said Lois hastily. But Mrs. Barclay roused herself, and begged that he might come in. "It is the carpenter, I suppose," said she.

Mr. Midgin was a tall, loose-jointed, large-featured man, with an undecided cast of countenance, and slow movements; which fitted oddly to his big frame and powerful muscles. He wore his working suit, which hung about him in a flabby way, and entered Mrs. Barclay's room with his hat on. Hat and all, his head made a little jerk of salutation to the lady.

"Good arternoon!" said he. "Sun'thin' I kin do here?"

"Yes, Mr. Midgin--I left word for you three days ago," said Lois.

"Jest so. I heerd. And here I be. Wall, I never see a room with so many books in it! Lois, you must be like a cow in clover, if you're half as fond of 'em as I be."

"You are fond of reading, Mr. Midgin?" said Mrs. Barclay.