Mrs. Asbury sat at a table, weighing out some medicine he had directed sent to a patient.  She looked up as Beulah entered, smiled, and said in an undertone: 

“My liege lord is indulging in a nap.  Come to the fire, dear; you look cold.”

She left the room with the medicine, and Beulah stood before the bright wood fire and watched the ruddy light flashing grotesquely over the pictures on the wall.  The gas had not yet been lighted; she crossed the room, and sat down before the window.  A red glow still lingered in the west, and, one by one, the stars came swiftly out.  She took up a book she had been reading that morning; but it was too dim to see the letters, and she contented herself with looking out at the stars, brightening as the night deepened.  “So should it be with faith,” thought she, “and yet, as troubles come thick and fast, we are apt to despair.”  Mrs. Asbury came back and lighted the gas, but Beulah was too much absorbed to notice it.  The doctor waked, and began to talk about the severity of the winter further north and the suffering it produced among the poor.  Presently he said: 

“What has become of that child Beulah—­do you know, Alice?”

“Yes; there she is by the window.  You were asleep when she came in.”

He looked round and called to her.

“What are you thinking about, Beulah?  You look as cold as an iceberg.  Come to the fire.  Warm hands and feet will aid your philosophizing wonderfully.”

“I am not philosophizing, sir,” she replied, without rising.

“I will wager my elegant new edition of Coleridge against your old one that you are!  Now, out with your cogitations, you incorrigible dreamer!”

“I have won your Coleridge.  I was only thinking of that Talmudish tradition regarding Sandalphon, the angel of prayer.”

“What of him?”

“Why, that he stands at the gate of heaven, listens to the sounds that ascend from earth, and, gathering all the prayers and entreaties, as they are wafted from sorrowing humanity, they change to flowers in his hands, and the perfume is borne into the celestial city to God.  Yesterday I read Longfellow’s lines on this legend, and suppose my looking up at the stars recalled it to my mind.  But Georgia told me you asked for me.  Can I do anything for you, sir?  Are there any prescriptions you wish written off?” She came and stood by his chair.

“No, thank you, child; but I should like to hear more of that book you were reading to me last night—­that is, if it will not weary you, my child.”

“Certainly not—­here it is.  I was waiting for you to ask me for more of it.  Shall I begin now, or defer it till after tea?”

“Now, if you please.”

Mrs. Asbury seated herself on an ottoman at her husband’s feet, and threw her arm up over his knee; and, opening Butler’s “Analogy,” Beulah began to read where she left off the previous day, in the chapter on “a future life.”