"Bring what to pass?" asked Linda eagerly. "What?"
"Ah, there comes in the temptation to outline. We can't tell what; but we must have faith that it will be the best thing, the happiest thing."
"Yes, I know," dejectedly. "I preached it all to Fred."
"That's it, dear. We don't really know these truths—they're not ours until we've lived them."
A few minutes longer Mrs. Porter sat on the foot of Linda's bed. The crescent moon dropped into the west, and the waves lapped the rugged shore in long, murmurous sweeps.
They talked no more, and when Mrs. Porter said good-night and went to her own room, had it not been so dark she would have observed that a photograph of Bertram King had found a place on Linda's table.
CHAPTER XXIII
A GOOD NEIGHBOR
Miss Benslow was wont to refer to her weather-beaten house, woefully in need of paint, as "the homestead." In her grandfather's time the place had been a small farm, but Cy Benslow had sold all of it but a couple of acres to Portland people who had put up cheap summer cottages.