“Which announcement, I suppose, is an appeal to my purse,” remarked Mr. Wyman.

“I should put her on a shorter allowance, if I were you,” said his wife, “if she does not give us more of her company.”

“Are you aware that you have been roaming most of the time, Dawn, since the change in our home?” said her father, as he presented her the means for her purchases.

“Of course, having some one to take my place as housekeeper, I wish to enjoy my freedom a little.”

Mrs. Wyman looked troubled.  Had she separated them?  Was Dawn absenting herself on her account?  A look of pain passed over her face, which she little knew the subject of her thoughts caught and interpreted.

“I am not going because you are here,” said Dawn at parting; “I am going because I feel impelled to.  I am truly grateful to you, that your love came to bless my father’s life.  Do you believe me?”

“I do; and thank you from my heart for your words.”  This was said with a depth of feeling that is always accompanied by the holy baptism of tears, and this was no exceptional occasion.

The first thought that came to Dawn, on her arrival in the city, was the dream of her childhood,—­the pure white robe, and the damp, dark lanes.

“Perhaps my mission is close at hand,” she said, stepping aside to let an old man pass.  She glanced at his sad, wrinkled face.  It seemed as though other eyes were looking through her own into it.  She took some money from her purse, and thrust it into his hand.

He closed his fingers mechanically over the bill; it was something more than money he needed.

“I am looking for-for-her,” he said, his eyes gazing on vacancy.

“Any one I can find for you?” inquired Dawn, touched by his gentle, childlike manner.

“Find her?  Can you find Margaret?  Why, she went away when she was a little gal; no, she has grown up-like you.  But I guess she’s lost; yes lost.  O, my little Margy,—­your own mammy, and your other mammy is dead, and I am all alone.  Come, Margy, come,” he said, reaching forth his hands to Dawn.

“I am not Margy; but perhaps we can find her.”  She drew nearer to him, and walked by his side down the street.

They passed along until the crowd grew more dense, and the sea of human forms, rushing and jostling, made her head swim.

What a variety; from childhood to age,—­faces in which sorrow and hope were struggling; faces marked with lines and furrows; cheeks sunken by disease and many griefs; bright, glowing faces, fresh as flowers, before the dew had been parched by noon-day sun and heat.  On, on they went,—­the busy crowd, and the old man, and the maiden; he, looking at all, yet seeing none; she, gazing with restless vision, for what? for whom?  How typical of life’s great highway, on which we wander, looking for that which we know not; hoping, that out of the sea of faces, one will shine forth on us, to receive or give a blessing.