The men, women, and children, native Californians and Indians,
scrubbed for the occasion, filed slowly past her, and she touched all
kindly and bade them be well. They regarded her with adoring eyes and
bent almost to the ground.

"Perhaps they will help me out of purgatory," she said; "and it is
something to be on a pedestal; I should not like to come down. It is
a cheap victory, but so are most of the victories that the world knows
of."

When she had touched nearly a hundred, they gathered about her, and
she spoke a few words to them.

"My friends, go, and say, 'I shall be well.' Does not the Bible say
that faith shall make ye whole? Cling to your faith! Believe! Believe!
Else will you feel as if the world crumbled beneath your feet!
And there is nothing, nothing to take its place. What folly, what
presumption, to suggest that anything can--a mortal passion--" She
stopped suddenly, and continued coldly, "Go, my friends; words do not
come easily to me to-day. Go, and God grant that you may be well and
happy."




XII.


We sat in the sala the next evening, awaiting the return of the
prodigal and his deliverer. The night was cool, and the doors were