The rap, low as it was, soon brought the old woman, who opened the door and said in a voice tremulous but sweet, “Come in, my dear.  I saw last night that a stranger was to visit me at this hour; yes, it’s the same face,” then motioned for her to pass in.

Margaret’s first thought was that some evil was intended, and she trembled and grew pale.

“No fears, my child,” said the woman, as though she had read her very thought, “angels are around you, guarding your life.  I do only my part of the work, which is to keep you to-night.”

And this was the strange woman of whom she had heard so munch.  Her fears vanished, she took the proffered seat, and without a shadow of distrust, drank the glass of cordial which was passed to her.

A feeling of rest came over her,—­a rest deeper than sleep imparts.  She leaned back in the chair, pillowed her head against the cushion, and felt more peaceful than she had for many months.

A strange curiosity pervaded her being, as she watched the woman moving about the room, to know of her former life-the life of her maidenhood,—­and learn if others beside herself had loved and been betrayed.

“I shall have no visitors to-night,” said the woman, seating herself opposite to Margaret.

“Do you often afford a shelter to strangers, as you have to me to-night?”

“Yes, child; many a sorrow-laden traveller, worn with life, seeks my lowly cot.”

“Sorrow-laden and worn with life,” said Margaret, repeating the words to herself; “she must have known my past experience;” and she wished she would go on, for somehow her words comforted her.

“Yes, there are more sinned against than sinning,” she continued.  “I knew that you was coming, or rather some one, for last night in my dreams I saw a form, and now I know it was your own, floating on a dark stream.  There was no boat in sight, no human being on shore, to save you.  The cold waters chilled you, till you grew helpless, and the waves bore you swiftly to the ocean.  I cried for help, and was awakened by my effort.  That stream represents your past, and here you are now in my dwelling.  Some one has wronged you, girl?”

She did not see the tinge on the pale cheek of Margaret, but continued, “Yes, wronged; but I see clouds and darkness before you, and then happiness, but not the joys of earth.  Something higher, holier, my child.”

A light seemed to have gathered over the face of the speaker, and her words, although strange and new to Margaret, seemed full of truth and meaning.

“Shall I find rest on earth?” she inquired.

“No, not here; above,” the old woman lifted her eyes toward heaven, then said: 

“You are stepping into sorrow now; going with one who will degrade you.  Do not follow her.  Though her outer garments are of purple and fine linen, her spiritual robe is black and unseemly.”

“Where?  O, tell me, then, where to go,” exclaimed Margaret, her whole face pale with terror.