When my voice grew a little weary, I rose softly and took down the old brown sampler, as I wished to replace it by a little picture I had brought with me.

It was a sacred photograph of the Crucifixion, in a simple Oxford frame, and had always been a great favourite with me; it was less painful in its details than other delineations of this subject:  the face of the divine sufferer wore an expression of tender pity.  Beneath the cross the Blessed Virgin and St. John stood with clasped hands,—­adopted love and most sacred responsibility,—­receiving sanction and benediction.

I had scarcely hung it on the nail before Phoebe’s querulous voice remonstrated with me.

’Why can you not leave well alone, Miss Garston?  I was thanking you in my heart for the music, but you have just driven it away.  I cannot have that picture before my eyes; it is too painful.’

‘You will not find it so,’ I replied quietly; ’it is a little present I have brought you.  My dead brother bought it for me when he was a boy at school, and it is one of the things I most prize.  He is dead, you know, and that makes it doubly dear to me.  That is why I want you to have it, because I have so much and you so little.’

My speech moved her a little, for her great eyes softened as she looked at me.

‘So you have been in trouble, too,’ she said softly.  ’And yet you can sing like a bird that has lost its way and finds itself nearly at the gate of Paradise.’

‘Shall I tell you about my trouble?’ I returned, sitting down by the bed.  It wrung my heart to talk of Charlie, but I knew the history of his suffering and patience would teach Phoebe a valuable lesson.

An hour passed by unheeded, and when I had finished I exclaimed at the lateness of the hour.

‘Ay, you have tired yourself; you look quite pale,’ was her answer; ’but you have made me forget myself for the first time in my life.’  She stopped, and then with more effort continued, ’Come again to-morrow, and I will tell you my trouble; it is worse than yours, and has made me the crazy creature you see.  Yes, I will tell you all about it’; but, half crying, as though she had little hope of contesting my will, ’You will not leave that picture to make my heart ache more than, it does now?’

‘My poor Phoebe,’ I said, kissing her, ’when your heart once aches for the thought of another’s sorrow your healing will have begun.  Let that picture say to you what no one has said to you before, “that all your life you have been an idolater, that you have worshipped only yourself and one other—­“’

‘Whom?  What do you mean?  Have you heard of Robert?’ she asked excitedly.

‘To-morrow is Sunday,’ I returned, touching her softly.  ’I am going to church in the morning, and I shall not be here until evening; but we shall have time then for a long talk, and you shall tell me everything.’  And then, without waiting for an answer, I left the room.  It was late indeed.  Miss Locke had long returned, and was busying herself over her sister’s supper; she held up her finger to me smiling as I passed, and I peeped in.