"May I have the pleasure of a little walk with you?" he asked, suiting his step to hers and ignoring her apparent coldness.

"Certainly. How long since you returned to Hampton, Mr. Carrington?"

recovering herself as they walked.

"Only a few days ago. I was called here on business for my uncle, and will probably be detained several weeks." He glanced at her as he spoke, but she gave no sign, only remarking it was a lovely season of the year for a visit. They walked along, talking only commonplaces, until they neared her home.

"Did you receive my letter, Miss Gra--Miss Hall?" he asked, with some unsteadiness in his voice.

"Yes," she replied, shortly. She did not understand herself any more than he did, and was vexed to find it so impossible to throw off her old proud ways, for she really intended to relent enough, at least, to have an explanation, and possibly--her thoughts could never go farther than this, and here she was, in the same imperious way, shutting her better self away from even a fair consideration of duty. These thoughts flashed through her mind while she walked on, apparently with the greatest indifference to either his words or his presence. But with a great effort she compelled herself to say again, with more warmth, "I received it, and intended to answer before this, but--" She stopped abruptly.

He gratefully caught the morsel she had given, and asked if he might not call the next day.

"Yes, you may come at three," she said, careful to set a time when Kate would surely be out.

At the door they parted, and as she went up the stairs, she wondered more than ever at her hardness, for almost unconsciously she had given up all doubts of his honor as a gentleman. What was it all about anyway? Nothing but a report that he was engaged to a young lady at the time he proposed to her, and on the testimony of a single friend, she had allowed herself to be miserable, and make another miserable, through this foolish pride that she _would_ conquer by to-morrow afternoon.

What! would she compel herself to so utterly ignore her own nature? She leaned against the wall half way up the stairway, startled at this revelation of herself. She did not know she was capable of such changes, and yet the last two weeks had greatly modified her opinions in many things.... Why should it not be so? If it were right she could be glad, and she reverently felt that it was right to let the Truth erase all errors and right all wrongs. To-night she would deny away every fault in her character, especially pride, deny every obstacle to understanding, and then earnestly ask for guidance, and wait till it came, for this was truly a crisis in her life.

The next day she received her guest with a perceptibly softened manner.

The hour was spent in mutual explanations, and the renewal of a more friendly relation on her part, much to the satisfaction of Mr.

Carrington, whose perseverance was surely worthy this much reward, but Grace would go no further, although she gave him permission to call again. She must know herself fully before another word on the subject were said. Marriage was a vague and solemn theme, something to be pondered over days and nights and months perhaps, she thought, and said to him.

Mr. Carrington was a man of earnest aim and high purpose, thoughtful, intellectual and cultured, in every way congenial to her, and she was glad to accept his friendship. That he had loved her through all her coldness and neglect, she no longer doubted, which fact was of no small import in his chances for her favor. Finding how absolutely false had been the report that had caused her misjudgment, she was anxious to prove herself at least, a friend.

After he was gone she reviewed the situation. Had she gone too far? No.

All was well. She was content. Even if it should end in marriage, for marriage was the highest symbol of perfection and--. What the symbol meant was yet to be revealed, but she already knew that it had a profound and sacred meaning.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"The study of Heredity, _spiritual_ anatomy and physiology is highest of all. The key to this study is your own soul. Study yourself; gain possession and mastery of your own spirit and you hold the key not only to the heights of liberty, but the key that unlocks imprisoned souls."--_Mary Weeks Burnett M. D._

"MARLOW, October----.

"My dear husband: Gradually the vision broadens and we become more accustomed to the light. It is as though we were put into a beautiful room filled with all manner of lovely forms and dainty colors, flowers and perfumes, where we have groped blindfolded from one thing to another, trying to form some conception of the surpa.s.sing loveliness, when gradually the bandage is removed, layer by layer until the whole enchanting scene, radiant with light is revealed to our wondering gaze, showing the vast difference between supposition and reality.

"The light grew clearer than ever to-day, for we had our first practical hint on healing, inasmuch as we were told how to take up a case for treatment.

"We must never forget that we are, and wish to remain as little children, in our desire to apprehend and understand Truth. The natural att.i.tude of the child-mind is one of receptivity and eager interest.

Under the guidance of wise parents he will always be willing and anxious to learn more and more, continually growing in wisdom and love.

"Back to the zeal and innocence of childhood we go then, to learn the ever mysterious but ever charming alphabet of Truth, which leads us into the kingdom.

"As we present ourselves in the great school room of life, and take or recognize our appointed place beside the ever present School-master, we learn the letters of the grand knowledge that shall teach us how to read the most learned books, understand the deepest philosophy, the profoundest science, the divinest religion. We would learn the ministry of healing, that will set free the 'spirits in prison;' we would be glad messengers of the gospel of peace. The door to great attainments is faithfulness in small ones.

"There are three kinds or modes of healing. The first or lowest, is the intellectual; the second or next higher, the intuitional; the third and highest, the spiritual. The first only can be taught, the other two are attained by individual development. The first comes by reason, the second by faith, the third by understanding. The first is by argument or a system of reasoning, the second by implicit trust or confidence in the Principle, the third by the realization of Truth and the speaking of the word or perchance, by one's very presence.

"But there is nothing arbitrary about this. The person who never heard of Christ's teaching till yesterday may have so caught the fire of Truth that to-day he stands at the altar a priest instead of communicant, a teacher instead of pupil.

"Many just beginning their study of this method of healing require explicit directions and explanations of details, in order to apply the principle, feeling that they have no intuitional leadings and can not depend upon the invisible power because they know so little about it.

"Wait; be patient; trust. Remember that 'he who is faithful in little, shall be made ruler over much.' You need not learn the rule if you learn the principle, and only so long as you are ignorant of the principle will you need the rule. To use the rule, as the child uses the chair in learning to walk, is to grow strong, and able to dispense with it; to use it as spectacles are used, is to make it indispensable.

"If we can not yet learn through divine ways, let us learn through human ways. The human is inadequate to express the divine, but many nameless hints and light-gleams and sudden illuminations will flash upon the faithful worker all along the way. Words are signs of ideas and ideas are signs of G.o.d. When we think or speak true words, we have begun our mission of healing or helpfulness, and from words we go on to the inexpressible thrill of realization.

"We can not tell when we may thus change from the letter to the spirit, can not tell when we come into the exalted condition of a spiritual understanding, and having received the illumination, we are not to feel that we have grown above the use of argument, for it may be necessary to go back to the rule with the very next treatment.

"Above all else must the student of this Truth guard against what may be called spiritual pride. No thought of supremacy or greater advancement should be harbored for a moment. All such things are clouds that obscure the light as much as other material beliefs.

"To gauge ourselves by that inimitable thirteenth chapter of I.

Corinthians is to maintain the perfect equilibrium of a loving, charitable heart, that can heal and bless all human-kind, for 'love never faileth.'

"We become, as it were, the cleansed window pane, through which shines the divine light of Truth. Could we always be the cleansed pane, Truth would melt away all error, just as the sun melts the frostwork, but being still in the current of human thought we must wait patiently for further power to reveal the G.o.d-likeness.

"Wrong thought as the real cause of disease, opens new avenues of information; but we continue to explore and discover. Any kind of thought opposite the good is sure to break forth into some form of disease-pictures, and the question is, what kind of thought is it which thus reflects itself upon the patient's body? All error will produce pictures of error. The world's naming of the belief in heredity is the naming of its greatest error, or belief in sin, because that implies all sins of the flesh as manifested in the body.

"Back of all effect is a cause; the disease is the effect, the wrong thought is the cause. One of the great causes of disease is sensual beliefs, the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions of the carnal man.

"It is error to suppose he is subject to conditions unlike G.o.d, the Source. 'He that is born of G.o.d, can not sin, because his seed remaineth in him.' Being in and controlled by the universal thought current, the error of supposition, he manifests it in his condition. Supposing consumption hereditary, he suffers from the supposition; supposing impurities of the blood transmitted through the flesh, he finds it even so. Supposition, false thinking, being at the bottom of all erroneous conditions, we proceed to deal with them as we do with any other errors or lies.

"When we seek for anything with a desire to gain happiness, it is because we hope to gain what our previous efforts have failed to bring us, so the one who comes to be healed by Christian Truth, comes with a hope at least that this will bring the health he has sought in vain from other sources. He has turned in all directions in response to the advice received from this or that one of the friendly advisers, so ready to const.i.tute themselves the body guard of the world. He has tried doctors of every school; he has traveled east, west, north and south; he has plunged into healing waters of all kinds and had all kinds of healing waters plunged into him; he has been burned and steamed and pounded and starved, till he is finally disgusted enough to want something that will not harm if it will not cure, so he drags himself before us with possibly a gleam of hope, possibly the faithlessness of despair, and asks for a treatment.

"And now you wish to know in what a treatment consists; simply in silently telling the patient the truth about himself as G.o.d's child, in giving him the principles we have learned concerning G.o.d and man, and with earnest gladness a.s.suring him of his freedom. For the benefit of the young pract.i.tioner, we will give a few directions or suggestive treatments.

"We ask the patient for a statement of his belief, which he is only too glad to give with elaborate and vivid details. We meet every statement with an emphatic mental denial.

"The faithful student who has fasted and prayed (denied and affirmed), is now the embodiment of one vast negative that should wipe out the positive belief of any inharmony. The patient, being in the belief of false conditions, is of one mind with the world, and so reflects the beliefs of mankind. That we may be sure of meeting all cla.s.ses of false beliefs, we deny for him the reflection of any false conceptions of himself from the race, his parents and ancestors, his friends and a.s.sociates, himself and ourself, for we are still one with humanity.

"Everybody has a conscious or unconscious belief in heredity, and since it is one of, if not _the_ most formidable of human beliefs, we deal with it first as the possible cause of our patient's belief in suffering.

"After he has finished the statement of his condition, we say to him mentally: 'James Martin! Hear what I say, for I tell you absolute truth.

Not one word of all this you have told me about dyspepsia is true, because the carnal mind, to which you have been listening, is not subject to the law of G.o.d, and _you_, the spiritual, immortal you, are subject to the mind of the spirit which recognizes the spiritual creation, therefore your spiritual self can not be sick or suffer from any inharmony.

"'This carnal mind belief named dyspepsia is not a condition of your real self. The belief of the race, ancestors, daily a.s.sociates, yourself or myself in heredity and the sensual appet.i.tes can not be pictured forth by your body in the form of dyspepsia, because the real you is spiritual and not subject to material beliefs. It is utterly impossible for you, who are spiritual, to be influenced by any thought that is opposite the spiritual, as it is impossible for the light to coalesce with darkness.

"'_You_ are G.o.d's child, made in His image and likeness, and must be perfect like Him, for His conditions are changeless and eternal. Listen to this glad message that tells you absolute Truth. Realize that as G.o.d's child you can not suffer, for spirit knows no suffering. You can not be weak, for G.o.d is your strength; you can not fear anything, for G.o.d is your refuge and fortress. 'G.o.d hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of sound mind.'

"'Listen to me!--The 'Truth sets free.'--_Now, you are free_. You gladly acknowledge the truth, and prove it in every thought, word and deed.

Like the Master, I say unto you, 'Lazarus, come forth!' Come out of the errors in which you have been so long entombed, throw off the grave clothes of mortal thought, and rise to new thoughts, new conditions, a new life! Rejoice that you are whole, and let the world rejoice with you.... It is finished. In the hands of omnipresent Good, in the name of immaculate Truth, I leave you.

"'So may this be established, yea, it _is already_ established. I thank Thee, Father, that thou hast heard me.'

"This lesson, John, is very hard to report. I find so many questions suggested to my mind, and so many if's and but's.