How should ho know himself; how fathom the strange fluttering of his heart, the quickening breath, the flashing blood, at times when he most earnestly sought to put such emotions away.  What meant his child’s close words touching his dim thoughts floating like nebulae in his mind?  What was this vague questioning state, with no revelations, no answers?  He tried to put it away, but each endeavor brought it closer, and he yielded at last to the strange spell.

Three days after their arrival, Miss Evans came from the house of mourning to their home of joy.

Hugh met her suddenly in the garden, whither she had gone in search of Dawn.  But where was “Hugh,” her brother, when they met?  Not before her.  The person had the manners of a stranger, instead of a long absent friend returned.

She sought Dawn, and met with a cordial welcome from her, which in some measure removed the chill from her heart.

Dawn struggled long that night with her feelings.  Her thoughts would wander over the sea to one who had so deeply touched her sympathies.  Her last meeting with him was in Paris.  He then stood with his sister gazing on Schoffer’s picture, which so beautifully represents the gradual rise of the soul through the sorrows of earth to heaven.  This beautiful work of art “consists of figures grouped together, those nearest the earth bowed down and overwhelmed with the most crushing sorrow; above them are those who are beginning to look upward, and the sorrow in their faces is subsiding into anxious inquiry; still above them are those who, having caught a gleam of the sources of consolation, express in their faces a solemn calmness; and still higher, rising in the air, figures with clasped hands, and absorbed, upward gaze, to whose eye the mystery has been unveiled, the enigma solved, and sorrow glorified.”

That picture floated through her mind.

“Shall I ever be among the ‘glorified,’” she asked of her inner self; “among those who see the divine economy of suffering, which purifies the soul from all grossness?  I must banish the thought of him from my mind,” she exclaimed, vehemently.  “I must have no earthly moorings; far, far out on life’s tumultuous sea, I see myself buffeting the waves alone.”  Thus spoke reason, while her soul kept up the swelling tide of emotion, and soon away went thought and feeling far over the blue sea, where he was yet gazing on the beauties of the Old World.

Would chance once more send him across her path?  Would she ever again look into those eyes of such wondrous depth?  These were the thoughts which floated through her mind-the last she experienced before passing into dreamland.

Lulled in sweet sleep, she seemed to stand upon a shore watching the waves which threw, at each inflowing, beautiful shells at her feet.  They were all joined in pairs, but none were rightly mated; all unmatched in size, form and color.  What hand shall arrange them in order?  Who will mate them, and re-arrange their inharmonious combinings?