“Are you ready to go home?”

“Is it so very late?”

“It is time we were going back, I think.”

Beulah tied on the hat and cape, which had been thrown aside, and saw them ride away.

There, in the golden twilight, she mused on the changes time bore on its swift chariot.  The gorgeous dreamings of her girlhood had faded like the summer clouds above her to the somber hue of reality.  From the hour when her father (a poor artist, toiling over canvas to feed his children) had, in dying accents, committed the two to God’s care, she only remembered sorrow up to the time that Dr. Hartwell took her to his home.  Her life there was the one bright oasis in her desert past.  Then she left it a woman, and began the long struggle with poverty and trials over again.  In addition, skepticism threw its icy shadow over her.  She had toiled in the cavernous mines of metaphysics hopelessly; and finally, returning to the holy religion of Jesus Christ, her weary spirit found rest.  Ah, that rest which only the exhausted wanderer through the burning wastes of speculation can truly comprehend and appreciate.  She had been ambitious, and labored to obtain distinction as a writer; and this, under various fictitious signatures, was hers.  She still studied and wrote, but with another aim, now, than mere desire of literary fame; wrote to warn others of the snares in which she had so long been entangled, and to point young seekers after truth to the only sure fountain.  She was very lonely, but not unhappy.  Georgia and Helen were both happily married, and she saw them very rarely; but their parents were still her counselors and friends.  At Mrs. Williams’ death they had urged her to remove to their house; but she preferred remaining at the little cottage, at least until the expiration of the year.  She still kept her place in the schoolroom; not now as assistant, but as principal in that department; and the increased salary rendered rigid economy and music lessons no longer necessary.  Her intense love of beauty, whether found in nature or art, was a constant source of pleasure; books, music, painting, flowers, all contributed largely to her happiness.  The grim puzzles of philosophy no longer perplexed her mind; sometimes they thrust themselves before her, threatening as the sphinx of old; but she knew that here they were insolvable; that at least her reason was no Oedipus, and a genuine philosophy induced her to put them aside, and, anchoring her hopes of God and eternity in the religion of Christ, she drew from the beautiful world in which she lived much pure enjoyment.  Once she had worshiped the universe; now she looked beyond the wonderful temple whose architecture, from its lowest foundations of rock to its starry dome of sky, proclaimed the God of revelation; and, loving its beauty and grandeur, felt that it was but a home for a season, where the soul could be fitted for yet more perfect dwelling-places.  Her face reflected the change which a calm reliance