“He has not.  I know it all by living in his home.  I feel his sorrows and know their nature, as well as his joys.  You seem strange, Dawn; I do not understand you.”

“Neither do I understand myself.  My life is strange; although I love this man as I never loved before, I do not see that I can wed him.  Perhaps we shall be one above, but no one must come between me and my labor,—­not even the dearest idol.”

“Perhaps his love might make you stronger; help you to extend your usefulness by increasing your happiness.”

Carlyle says, ’There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof, find blessednss.’”

“Very true; and yet happiness might also be blessedness.”

“And yet you have read to me, in the fairy tale, that ’earthly love is misery,’ that it ’fevers the blood of mortals, pales the cheek, makes the heart beat, and the voice falter, when it comes.’  I cannot be thus consumed.  I have another mission.  Edith, who do you suppose wrote that tale?”

“I know not; it bore no name.  Which of the three shades would you prefer to guide you, Dawn?”

“Virtue.”

“I knew your answer before you spoke it.  May the spirit you have chosen remain with you forever, and may your career be as bright as your name.”

They parted; one to rest, the other to struggle long and earnestly with passion and feeling, ere the tide of peace flowed in.

It was morning when her soul cast off the contest, and as the shadows of night were swept away, so her mental shadows were lost in the soul’s bright effulgence; for her emotions had been made subordinate, not destroyed, as they should ever be, to the spiritual.  They were only submerged, not annihilated, ready to flow again when the hour should demand them.

The natural emotions of the heart are right, when kept subservient to reason.  They are the soul’s richest reserved forces, and should not be daily consumed.

A more intimate relation sprang up between Edith and Dawn, and when they met that morning, it seemed as though they had just emerged from a long experience.  So closely and unexpectedly do we sometimes come to one another.

Herbert and Florence, to Dawn’s great joy, were travelling in Europe, and their children were now a part of her father’s household.  The day’s pleasure was planned with a view to their happiness, and spent mostly in the woods gathering mosses, wild flowers, and ferns.

Hugh and his new wife were daily extending their usefulness, and growing in stronger individuality and deeper harmony.  It was always a great pleasure to have Dawn with them in their most earnest conversations.  She seemed to vivify and to cause their thoughts to flow with a power they knew not, separately or together, without her presence.  Thus do some natures impart a sense of freedom to our mental action, while others chill our being with a feeling of restraint, and limit all our aspirations.  In the presence of these latter we seem and act directly the opposite of ourselves, or rather below our intellectual and affectional plane, and the warm heart and generous nature appears cold and distrustful.