They were delighted with everything.  They kept laughing and kissing each other for sheer joy of heart; and although a sigh, and a murmur of “Poor Dan! if only he could be here!” would break at intervals from one or another, yet in the intense joy of this meeting, and in the sense of escape from the city in which they had been so long imprisoned, all but thankfulness and delight must needs be forgotten, and it was a ring of wonderfully happy faces that shone on Mary Harmer at the supper board that night.

“This is indeed a kindly welcome, sister,” said Rachel, as she sat at her husband’s right hand, looking round upon the dear faces she had scarce dared hope to see thus reunited for so many weary weeks; “I could have desired nothing better for all of us.  Thou canst scarcely know how it does feel to be free once more, to be able to go where one will, without vinegar cloths to one’s face, and to feel that the air is a thing to breathe with healing and delight, instead of to be feared lest there be death in its kiss!  Ah me!  I think God does not let us know how terrible a thing is till His chastening hand is removed.  We go on from day to day, and He gives us strength for each day as it comes; but had we known at the beginning what lay before us, methinks our souls would have well nigh fainted within us.  And yet here we are—­all but one—­safe and sound at the other side!”

“I truly never thought to see such fearful sights, and to come through such a terrible time of trial,” said Dinah very gravely.  She was one of the party included in Mary Harmer’s hospitable invitation, and looked indeed more in need of the rest and change than any of the others.  Her brother had had some ado to get her to quit her duties as nurse to the sick even yet, but it was not difficult now to get tendance for them, and she felt so greatly the need of rest that she had been persuaded at last.

“Many and many are the times when I have been left the only living being in a house—­once, so far as I could tell, the only living thing in a whole street!  None may know, save those who have been through it, the awful loneliness of being so shut in, with nothing near but dead bodies.  And yet the Lord has brought me through, and only one of our number has been taken.”

The mother’s eyes filled with tears, but her heart was too thankful for those spared her to let her grief be loud.  One after another those round the table spoke of the things they had seen and heard; but presently the talk drifted to brighter themes.  Gertrude asked eagerly of her father, and where he was and what he was doing; and Mary Harmer asked if he would not come and join them, if her house could be made to hold another inmate.