From out the ark of the round year God sends some day-doves of summer into the barren spring-time, to sing of coming joys and peck the buds into opening. One of His sending brooded over Redleaf when I walked forth in its morning-time to redeem my promise.
"Miss Percival! I'm so glad!"
Katie showed me into the room that once I had been so much afraid of.
She did not long leave me there.
"Miss Lettie would like to see you in her room."
Sophie was right. She is almost well.
"Come!" was the sole word that met my entering in; then followed two small acts, supposed to be conventionalities. Isn't it good that all suppositions are not based upon truth? I thought it good then. I hope I may away on to the dawning of the new life.
This was my first seeing of Miss Axtell in her self-light. She said,—
"This is the only day that I have been down in time for breakfast,"—she, who looked as if the fair Dead-Sea fruits had been all of sustenance that had dropped through the leaden waves for her; and an emotion of awe swept past me, borne upon the renewal of the consciousness that I had been made essential to her.
"I knew that you would come," she continued. "Oh! I have great confidence in you; you must never disappoint me,—will you?"—and, playfully, she motioned me to the footstool where she had appointed me a place on the first night when she told me of her mother, dead.
I assured her that I should. I must begin that moment by mentioning the time of my visit's duration.