exciting and absorbing, this strange search. She frequently visited
towns where a popular preacher or lecturer was announced, and made
one of the vast throng that passed about him; then, taking a
favourable position, rapidly scanned the upturned faces, wondering,
meanwhile, what that strange, subtle something is, by which we
recognise each other; that unerring consciousness, so that among
ten thousand faces, could we view them one by one, we know at a
glance that the one we seek is not there; we do not stop, and doubt,
and compare--we know.

She humbled herself to the very dust, and wrote letters far and near
to his ministerial friends, that brought only sorrowful replies. And
now there came a remembrance that he had often spoken of the far west
as a wide and promising field for labour; that some time he should
like to go there and build up a church. He might have gone there now.
So, with this forlorn hope, she started westward; spending the summer
journeying, stopping over the Sabbath at straggling villages, and
visiting different churches. Wearied out at length, she recalled the
fact that an uncle had removed, with his family, to the south-west,
several years before.

She searched out their whereabouts and hastened thither, intending to
spend but a brief season. But yielding to their entreaties she
remained through the autumn. It was now drawing near to Christmas,
and still she lingered. She was growing hopeless, and that pleasant
home filled with boys and girls was a diversion from her grief.

"Do, cousin Vida, go with me to-day, won't you?" asked Harry, a
bright boy of fourteen. "I know a splendid place about ten miles from
here, where we can get some evergreens; I want to trim up the house