"All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I did, Miss Faith. But I think it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am getting——"

"Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don't steal the verses before I read them! You're such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything."

And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was uplifted to hers.

"'Up in the wild, where no one comes to look,
There lives and sings, a little lonely brook;
Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines,
Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. "'Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught,
It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought;
And down dim hollows, where it winds along,
Bears its life-burden of unlistened song. "'I catch the murmur of its undertone
That sigheth, ceaselessly,—alone! alone!
And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously
Shout on their paths toward the shining sea! "'The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun;
And wearing names of honor, every one;
Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand
To pour great gifts along the asking land. "'Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines!
Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines!
Sing on among the stones, and secretly
Feel how the floods are all akin to thee! "'Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth;
Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth;
For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky,
Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!'"

Faith's voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory's cheeks.

"Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself.

"Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain't sure whether I was meant to tell; but do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she won't; I'm afraid not; it would be too good a time! but he wants her to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!"

Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation till the deliberations had become conclusions.

"Why, you don't seem glad!"

"I am glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr. Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still.