To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had passed like a rosy dream.

The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind—­

        “How some they have died, and some they have left me,
        And some are taken from me; all are departed”—­

of Charles Lamb’s quaint tender “Old familiar faces,” as full of melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.

To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly: 

“’We sat and talked until the night
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight—­
Our voices only broke the gloom. 
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again. 
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.’”

Attracted by the rhythm, which softly beat upon the air like some muffled prelude striking only minor chords, Mrs. Lindsay came to the hearth, and with her arm resting on the girl’s shoulder, stood listening.

“How dearly my Douglass loved those lines.”

“And on the night before he died, Mr. Hargrove repeated them, asking me afterward to select some sweet solemn sacred tune with an organ accompaniment, and sing them for him.  But what music is there that would suit a poem, which henceforth will seem as holy as a psalm to me?”

“Perhaps after a while you and I may be able to quiet the pain, and set it to some sweet old chant.  Just now our hearts are too sore.”

“After a while?  What hope has after a while?  It cannot bring back the lost; and does memory ever die?  After a while has not given me my mother; after a while has not taught me to forget her, or made me more patient in my waiting.  After a while I know death will come to us all, and then there will be no more heartache; but I can’t see that there is any comfort in after a while, except beyond the grave.  Mrs. Lindsay, I do not wish to be wicked or rebellious, but it seems very hard that I must leave this dear quiet home, and be separated from you and Mr. Lindsay whom I dearly love, and go and live in a city, with that cold, hard, harsh, stern man, of whom I am so much afraid.  He may mean well, but he has such unkind ways of showing it.  You have no idea how dreadful the future looks to me.”