Volume 9 — Chapter XI. The Mountains Whence Help Cometh.

Mr. Granger was one of those persons whom we miss more than we expect to, their influence is so quiet, their stability has so little of hardness. As has been beautifully said, such characters are "like the water-lily, fixed yet floating." We do not know how much we rest on them till the support is withdrawn.

They heard from him constantly, the letters being directed to Mr. Lewis, but intended for all the family.

Evidently his good spirits had not deserted him. Never before had he been so much alive, he wrote. The excitement, the uncertainty, the very restraints which reminded of power, and of great interests at stake, all kept his thoughts in a brisk circulation, and threw the bile off his mind.

Miss Dora had, however, her separate correspondence, letters directed to herself, which Miss Hamilton read to her, and answered from her dictation.

In those days the child learned a new prayer: "O Mother in heaven, take pity on me who have no mother on earth, and whose father has gone to the wars. Watch over him, that I may not be left an orphan. Pray for him, and for me, and for whoever loves us best. Do not forget me, O Mother! for if you do, my heart will break."

"Who is it that loves us best?" the child asked the first time she said this prayer.

"I do not know," was the reply. "We can never be sure who loves us best. But God knows, and the good Mother can find out."

"I thought it was you," said Dora. Margaret's voice sank to a whisper. "Perhaps it is, dear."

In a few weeks Mr. Southard also left then, not cheerfully, but with a gloom which he took no pains to conceal.

And the few weeks grew to many weeks, and months multiplied. The summer was gone, and the autumn was gone, and winter melted like a snow-flake on the mantle of time. When our eyes are fixed in anxious longing on some future day, the intermediate days slip through our fingers like sands through an hour-glass, and keep no trace of their passage.

If, when the spring campaign opened, and both the absent ones were in active service, our friends watched with some sinking of the heart for news, it was no more than happened in tens of thousands of other homes. Heart-sickness was by no means a rare disease in those days.

The soldier in charge of the soldier's news-room on Kneeland street became very much interested in one of the few visitors who used to go there that summer. Nearly every say, surely every day when there had been a battle, a pale-faced young lady would open the door, enter quickly, and without looking to right or left go directly to the frames that held the lists of killed and wounded, and read them through from end to end. The soldier got to have an anxious feeling about this lady. Unnoticed by her, he watched her face while she read, and hushed his breath till he saw that terrible look go out of her eyes. The lists finished, she would pull her veil down, sigh wearily, and go out as quietly as she had entered.

"When she finds the name she is looking for, I hall see her drop," he thought.

But Margaret did not drop, though often enough she was in danger of it, as her eyes fell on some blurred name, or some name very like the one she dreaded to see.

It was too wearing. Both flesh and spirit were sinking under this constant strain. Where was the help that religion was to give her? Leave everything to God, trust all to him, she was told. But how? Her thoughts were clenched in these interests; and, in spite of faith, it seemed as though, if she should let go her hold, they would fall. She found that her religion was only of the surface. It had grown in the sunshine, and was not rooted against the storm. She tried to put into practice the precepts she listened to, but the daily distractions of life constantly neutralized her efforts. There was but one way, and for the first time Margaret made a retreat.

The place selected was a convent a little out of the city.

Here in this secluded asylum was all that her soul needed for its restoring; quiet, leisure, the society of those whose lives are devoted to God, and, to crown all, the presence of the blessed sacrament of the altar.

One feels very near heaven when one hears only praying voices, sees only happy, peaceful faces, is looked upon only by kind eyes, and can at any hour go before the altar, alone, undisturbed by those distractions which constantly environ our ordinary worship. How still we become! In that presence how our little troubles and sorrows exhale, as mists lift from the rivers at sunrise, and leave all clear and bright! How cramped and feverish all our past life has been! Everything settles into its true place. Sorrow and death lose their sting. We are safe, for we partake of the omnipotence of God. To think that the same roof that shelters our heads when we lie down to sleep shelters also the sacred head of the Son of God—that drives every other thought from the mind. It is marvellous, it seems incredible, and yet the wonder of it is lost in the sweetness. The moonlight coming in at the window lies white and silent on the bare white floor. You rise to kiss that luminous spot, for just beneath is the altar. Peace rises to exultation, for you perceive more and more that the Father holds us all in his hands, those near and those afar, and that we have but to lift our eyes, and we shall behold the mountains whence help cometh. We want to run out and tell everybody. It seems as if we have just discovered all this, and that no one ever knew it before. We forget that we are sinners. It isn't much matter about us any way. We will think of that afterward. We will make acts of contrition when we get away from here. Now we can make only acts of adoration and of joy.

The superior of the convent directed Margaret's retreat, and on the last morning of it she and all the nuns received communion, and there was the benediction after mass.

The others had gone out, but Margaret still lingered before the altar. Out in the early sunshine, the trees rustled softly, and the breeze waved the curtains of the chapel windows. Occasionally, one of the nuns would come to the door, look in, and go away again smiling, though Miss Hamilton's breakfast was spoiling over the fire, and there was a gentleman waiting in the parlor for her.

"She is in the chapel at her devotions," the sister had told him.

"Don't disturb her on any account," he had answered. "There is no haste."

Margaret was not praying, was not thinking; her soul was silent, lost in God, like a star in the day.

Presently she came out, and, meeting one of the nuns in the hall, embraced her tenderly. "Sister," she said, "this is the most beautiful world that ever was made."

The gentleman had been waiting some time when he heard a step, and in the door there stood a slight, black-robed lady with a veil thrown over her head, a bright face, and a smell of incense lingering about her. She lifted both hands when she saw him.

"My cup runneth over!"

"You are not a nun?" asked Mr. Granger.

"You're not an apparition," she returned. "Oh! welcome!"

"And now," he said, delighted to see her so happy, "if you are ready, we will go home. I have only a few days' furlough, and I want to make the most of it."

Margaret went to take a hasty leave of the nuns, and also to step into the chapel for one moment.

Then she went out from under that happy portal, and down the steps to the carriage that was waiting for them. One of the sisters stood in the door looking after her, and others here and there in the grounds looked up with a pleasant word of farewell as she passed. She stooped to gather from the lower terrace a humble souvenir, two or three grass-blades and a clover-leaf, then stepped into the carriage. As they drove slowly down the avenue, she looked up into the overhanging branches and repeated:

"'Above him the boughs of the hemlock trees Waved, and made the sign of the cross, And whispered their Benedicitis.'"

The family were in raptures over Mr. Granger's return. They could not look at him enough, listen to him enough, do enough for him. "And how nice you look in your uniform!" said Margaret, feeling as if she were about six years old.

"And how nice you look in anything!" he retorted, at which they all laughed. It took but little to make them laugh in those days.

Mr. Granger, on his part, was as merry as a boy. He was full of adventures to tell them, glad to be at home, happy in their confidence and affection, and hopeful of the future.

Margaret could scarcely believe her own happiness. She would turn away, shut her eyes, and think, "I have imagined it all. He is hundreds of miles away, I do not know whether he is sick or well. He may be in peril. He may be dead. O my friend! come home, come home! Are we never to see you again?"

Then, when she had succeeded in tormenting herself sufficiently, when her heart was sinking, and her eyes overflowing with tears, she would turn quickly, trembling between dream and reality, and see him there alive and well, and at home.

"Oh! there he is, thank God!"

And so every day she renewed in her vivid imagination the pain of his absence and the delight of his return, till too soon the day came when she no longer dared to play such tricks with herself, for he was again gone out of their sight. But the lessons of the retreat were not forgotten, and every morning brought refreshment.

To Be Continued.