the eternal love and goodness of God, had looked to him for relief and reward.  But the reward came not in the expected way.  Hope died; faith fainted; and bitterness and despair reigned in that once loving and gentle soul.  Her father had not been spared in answer to her frantic prayers.  Lilly had been taken, without even the sad comfort of a farewell, and now, with the present full of anguish, and the future shrouded in dark forebodings, she sobbed aloud: 

“All alone!  All alone!  Oh, father!  Oh, Lilly, Lilly!”

“Do pray, chile, don’t take on so; you will fret yourself sick again,” said Harriet, compassionately patting the drooped head.

“Don’t talk to me—­don’t speak to me!” cried Beulah passionately.

“Yes; but I was told not to let you grieve yourself to death, and you are doing your best.  Why don’t you put your trust in the Lord?”

“I did, and he has forgotten me.”

“No, chile.  He forgets not even the little snow-birds.  I expect you wanted to lay down the law for him, and are not willing to wait until he sees fit to bless you.  Isn’t it so?”

“He never can give me back my dead.”

“But he can raise up other friends for you, and he has.  It is a blessed thing to have my master for a friend and a protector.  Think of living always in a place like this, with plenty of money, and nothing to wish for.  Chile, you don’t know how lucky—­”

She paused, startled by ringing’ peals of laughter, which seemed to come from the adjoining passage.  Sounds of mirth fell torturingly upon Beulah’s bleeding spirit, and she pressed her fingers tightly over her ears.  Just opposite to her sat the old trunk, which, a fortnight before, she had packed for her journey up the river.  The leathern face seemed to sympathize with her woe, and, kneeling down on the floor, she wound her arms caressingly over it.

“Bless the girl! she hugs that ugly, old-fashioned thing as if it were kin to her,” said Harriet, who sat sewing at one of the windows.

Beulah raised the lid, and there lay her clothes, the books Eugene had given her; two or three faded, worn-out garments of Lilly’s, and an old Bible.  The tears froze in her eyes, as she took out the last, and opened it at the ribbon mark.  These words greeted her:  “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.”  Again and again she read them, and the crushed tendrils of trust feebly twined once more about the promise.  As she sat there, wondering why suffering and sorrow always fell on those whom the Bible calls “blessed,” and trying to explain the paradox, the door was thrown rudely open, and a girl about her own age sprang into the room, quickly followed by Mrs. Chilton.

“Let me alone, mother.  I tell you I mean to see her, and then you are welcome to me as long as you please.  Ah, is that her?”