It is strange how much a human heart may suffer and yet beat on and regain tranquillity, and even cheerfulness at last.  It is a most merciful provision of Providence, that our griefs do not always press upon us as heavily as they do at first, else how could the burden of this life of change and sorrow be borne.  But the loved ones are not forgotten when the tear is dried and the smile returns to the cheek; they are remembered, but with less of sadness and gloom in the remembrance; and at length, if we can think of them as happy, it is only a pleasure to recall them to mind.

So Agnes found it, as after a few months of rest and quiet in her uncle’s happy home, the gloom of her sorrow began to fade away, the color returned to her cheek, and she began to be like the Agnes of former times.  And now that health and energy had returned, she began to long for employment again, and though she knew it would cost a great struggle to leave her dear friends at Brook Farm, she began to urge them all to be on the watch for a situation for her as governess or teacher.

At length, one day, some months after her brother’s death, Mr. Wharton entered the room where she was sitting, and said: 

“Agnes, there is a gentleman down stairs, who would like to engage you to superintend the education of his children.”

If Agnes had looked closely at her uncle’s face, she would have observed a very peculiar expression there; but only laying aside her work, she said: 

“Please say to him, uncle, that I will come down in one moment.”

With a quiet step and an unpalpitating heart, Agnes opened the parlor door, and found herself alone with—­Mr. Harrington!

And here we will end our short chapter, though enough was said that morning to make it a very long one, as it certainly was an eventful one in the history of Agnes.

XXI

The Winding Up or the Turning Point, whichever the Reader likes Best.

   “Still at thy father’s board
   There is kept a place for thee
   And by thy smile restored,
   Joy round the hearth shall be.”—­MRS. HEMANS.

   “He will not blush that has a father’s heart,
   To take in childish plays a childish part,
   But bends his sturdy back to any toy
   That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy.”—­Cowper

“What do you think, Calista?—­what do you think?” asked Miss Evelina Fairland of her sister, about two years after she had asked these same questions before.  “There are masons, and carpenters, and painters, and paperers, and gardeners, at work at the old Rookery; a perfect army of laborers have been sent down from the city.  What can it mean?”

“I cannot imagine, I am sure,” answered Miss Calista, “unless Mr. Harrington is really going to settle down, and look out for a wife at last.”  And Miss Calista looked in the glass over her sister’s shoulder, and both faces looked more faded and considerably older than when we saw them last.