and remembrance in the depth of Millie's
dove-like eyes.

Yes, the sacrifice was great, appalling.
Alone with her own heart that night Hildred
quailed. She suffered most pain from a
keen sense of the cruelty of the position in
which she had found herself.

The dawn of Christmas morning shone
upon a wildly haggard face gazing out upon its
brightness from an ivied-window. Hildred's
eyes had not closed in sleep that night. Vivid
pictures, devil-suggested of things that might
have been, presented themselves to her fancy.
She had seen herself acting out, scene after
scene, a proudly-happy life, as Erle Lyneward's
wife; and she had felt no power to
bid the tempter get behind her. It seemed
as if her all of strength had been exhausted
in that final master-stroke put to her own
dark destiny; as if she now lay weak and
weary and utterly defenceless at the mercy
of all evil suggestions. Happily her bitter
words of indignant upbraiding had firmly
closed the door of that proud heart against
herself.

The dawn grew into bright day; the
sun shone full into her room; the birds
twittered busily among the scarlet berries of
the holly without; and soon she heard
Millie singing a quaint, pathetic, scrap of old
Christmas-song, as she waited below for her
sister's coming. The whole world then, like
Millie's hymn, was rejoicing in peace and
good-will! She only was torn by inward
strife, and utterly abandoned, even by her
own poor pride.

But there was something yet to be borne
and done! Had she come so far and could
she not drag herself one step further, before
she lay down, finally, to die? It was yet
possible to madden Erle and to make Millie
miserable, though it was too late to help herself.
Should she spoil all now, at the last
hour?

No! She found strength enough to battle
on a little longer. She dressed hastily, but
neatly; dashed ice-cold water into her face
and dried it so roughly that the delicate skin
glowed again; and, before that glow had time
to fade, or a practised smile to die away from
her mouth, she had joined Millie; had given
her all fair good wishes of the season, and
borne the mockery of having them returned
to her with many a soft kiss and fond word.

"And now to breakfast," Hildred said;
'for it is late, and Erie will be here directly
to take you to church."

"And you will come with us?" Millie
asked.

"No! I shall spend this happy Christmas
morning alone. I am not well." Hildred
answered.

"And yet you had such a colour when you
came down! Let me stay with you? I had
much rather."

"Certainly not; there's no occasion. Millie,
have you not found out yet, child, that I
love my own company better than even
yours."

Hildred hurried back to her own room before
Mr. Lyneward came to fetch Millie. She
could not have met him calmly. But when
they were gone, he and Millie, and the
servants; when all the country people,
churchward bound, had passed along the
road, Hildred felt that she could not bear
the great quiet that fell upon the house. The
silent shining-in of the sun: the way it lay
still and serene upon all it touched, even
upon her, was maddening. She could not
bear to remain there, alone. She would
go to church, too. It was a sudden resolve,
suddenly executed. A frenzied fear of being
too late appeared to seize her. She did not
mean to go to the village-church, where
Millie and Erie, and many people who
knew her, were; but to a little old church
on the other side of the hill, to which but
very few ever went.

She reached it at last, with difficulty; for
she found herself very weak, and her trembling
eagerness defeated itself. She made
her way into a curtained pew, once a long
dead-and-dust squire's. It was musty, dusty,
and deserted. She crouched down in a corner
where no one could see her.

During the hour that Hildred passed in
that old faded pew, listening, hardly conscious
that she did listen, to holy words
often heard before, a new chord was struck
within her. Some will call this unnatural,
improbable; I say it is not so  but simply and
only mysterious. It was solely one of God's
providences (of which so many talk, in which
so few firmly believe); an instance of his
infinite mercy in providing for a soul in sore
and utmost need.

Millie's words came back to Hildred's
mind. She remembered Millie's saying, that
those do not suffer thoroughly who do not
suffer patiently. After thinking of this,
Hildred did not know distinctly what she
heard. The service was over,—the few
worshippers gone home to happy firesides
and Christmas mirth,—yet she sat still, unconscious
that not another human being was
in the little church, and that the old door was
shut upon her.

Hildred was glad when she found that she
was alone. She came out of her corner, went
up the aisle, to the communion-table, knelt
there, and opened the great Bible.

She found grand, great, glorious words—
words that filled her excited mind with awful
joy—appealing to her glowing imagination
and her power of heroic self-sacrifice.

The sun descended lower in the heavens,
slanted in at a little stained west window,
and threw hues of soft amethyst and of
golden glory upon the fine dark head bent
low in reverent worship. Then it faded
out altogether. Still Hildred knelt on.

The church grew dim and dusky—she
could read no longer, but she prayed.