She will stay with me for the weeks during which my uncle wishes to have Dolly all to himself. I think there will be a great many of those weeks, from what I know of Dolly; but being with a happy Mrs. Barnes will be different from being with her as she was here. She is so happy that she consists entirely of unclouded affection. The puckers from her face, and the fears and concealments from her heart, have all gone together. She is as simple and as transparent as a child. She always was transparent, but without knowing it; now she herself has pulled off her veils, and cordially requests one to look her through and through and see for oneself how there is nothing there but contentment. A little happiness,—what wonders it works! Was there ever anything like it?
This is a place of blessing. When I came up my mountain three months ago, alone and so miserable, no vision was vouchsafed me that I would go down it again one of four people, each of whom would leave the little house full of renewed life, of restored hope, of wholesome looking-forward, clarified, set on their feet, made useful once more to themselves and the world. After all, we're none of us going to be wasted. Whatever there is of good in any of us isn't after all going to be destroyed by circumstances and thrown aside as useless. When I am so foolish—if I am so foolish I should say, for I feel completely cured! as to begin thinking backwards again with anything but a benevolent calm, I shall instantly come out here and invite the most wretched of my friends to join me, and watch them and myself being made whole.
The house, I think, ought to be rechristened.
It ought to be called Chalet du Fleuve Jordan.
But perhaps my guests mightn't like that.