“I will.  Is there nothing else?”

“Thank you, my dear, good, kind friend.  Nothing else.”

“Edna, promise me that you will take care of your precious life.”

“I will try, Mr. Manning.”

He looked down into her worn, weary face and sighed, then for the first time he took both her hands, kissed them and left her.

Swiftly the steamer took its way seaward; through the Narrows, past the lighthouse; and the wind sang through the rigging, and the purple hills of Jersey faded from view, proving Neversink a misnomer.

One by one the passengers went below and Edna and Felix were left on deck, with stars burning above, and blue waves bounding beneath them.

As the cripple sat looking over the solemn, moaning ocean, awed by its brooding gloom, did he catch in the silvery starlight a second glimpse of the rose-colored veils, and snowy vittae, and purple-edged robes of the Parcae, spinning and singing as they followed the ship across the sobbing sea?  He shivered, and clasping tightly the hand of his governess, said: 

“Edna, we shall never see the Neversink again.”

“God only knows, dear Felix.  His will be done.”

  “How silvery the echoes run—­
   Thy will be done—­Thy will be done.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

“Worthy?  No, no!  Unworthy! most unworthy!  But was Thomas worthy to tend the wandering sheep of Him, whom face to face he doubted?  Was Peter worthy to preach the Gospel of Him, whom he had thrice indignantly denied?  Was Paul worthy to become the Apostle of the Gentiles, teaching the doctrine of Him whose disciples he had persecuted and slaughtered?  If the repentance of Peter and Paul availed to purify their hands and hearts, and sanctify them to the service of Christ, ah!  God knows my contrition has been bitter and lasting enough to fit me for future usefulness.  Eight months ago, when the desire to become a minister seized me so tenaciously, I wrestled with it, tried to crush it; arguing that the knowledge of my past life of sinfulness would prevent the world from trusting my professions.  But those who even slightly understand my character, must know that I have always been too utterly indifferent to, too unfortunately contemptuous of public opinion, to stoop to any deception in order to conciliate it.  Moreover, the world will realize that in a mere worldly point of view, I can possibly hope to gain nothing by this step.  If I were poor, I might be accused of wanting the loaves and fishes of the profession; if unknown and ambitious, of seeking eminence and popularity.  But when a man of my wealth and social position, after spending half of his life in luxurious ease and sinful indulgence, voluntarily subjects himself to the rigid abstemiousness and self-sacrificing requirements of a ministerial career, he can not be suspected of hypocrisy.  After all, sir, I care not for the discussion, of