The happy hours of Hope Wayne’s life were the visits of Lawrence Newt.  The sound of his voice in the hall, of his step on the stair, gave her a sense of profound peace.  Often, as she sat at table with Mrs. Simcoe, in her light morning-dress, and with the dew of sleep yet fresh upon her cheeks, she heard the sound, and her heart seemed to stop and listen.  Often, as time wore on, and the interviews were longer and more delayed, she was conscious that the gaze of her old friend became curiously fixed upon her whenever Lawrence Newt came.  Often, in the tranquil evenings, when they sat together in the pleasant room, Hope Wayne cheerfully chatting, or sewing, or reading aloud, Mrs. Simcoe looked at her so wistfully—­so as if upon the point of telling some strange story—­that Hope could not help saying, brightly, “Out with it, aunty!” But as the younger woman spoke, the resolution glimmered away in the eyes of her companion, and was succeeded by a yearning, tender pity.

Still Lawrence Newt came to the house, to consult, to inspect, to bring bills that he had paid, to hear of a new utensil for the kitchen, to see about coal, about wood, about iron, to look at a dipper, at a faucet—­he knew every thing in the house by heart, and yet he did not know how or why.  He wanted to come—­he thought he came too often.  What could he do?

Hope sang as she sat in her chamber, as she read in the parlor, as she went about the house, doing her nameless, innumerable household duties.  Her voice was rich, and full, and womanly; and the singing was not the fragmentary, sparkling gush of good spirits, and the mere overflow of a happy temperament—­it was a deep, sweet, inward music, as if a woman’s soul were intoning a woman’s thoughts, and as if the woman were at peace.

But the face of Mrs. Simcoe grew sadder and sadder as Hope’s singing was sweeter and sweeter, and significant of utter rest.  The look in her eyes of something imminent, of something that even trembled on her tongue, grew more and more marked.  Hope Wayne brightly said, “Out with it, aunty!” and sang on.

Amy Waring came often to the house.  She was older than Hope, and it was natural that she should be a little graver.  They had a hundred plans in concert for helping a hundred people.  Amy and Hope were a charitable society.

“Fiddle diddle!” said Aunt Dagon, when she was speaking of his two friends to her nephew Lawrence.  “Does this brace of angels think that virtue consists in making shirts for poor people?”

Lawrence looked at his aunt with the inscrutable eyes, and answered slowly,

“I don’t know that they do, Aunt Dagon; but I suppose they don’t think it consists in not making them.”

“Phew!” said Mrs. Dagon, tossing her cap-strings back pettishly.  “I suppose they expect to make a kind of rope-ladder of all their charity garments, and climb up into heaven that way!”

“Perhaps they do,” replied Lawrence, in the same tone.  “They have not made me their confidant.  But I suppose that even if the ladder doesn’t reach, it’s better to go a little way up than not to start at all.”