me that all was well with her; but I did
so believe, and I said over and over:
"Thank you, God! Thank you, God!"

And now my tears began to flow.
They came in a storm -- a storm I could
not control, and I fled back to mother's
room, and stood there before the west
window weeping as I never had wept
before.

The quiet loveliness of the closing
day had passed into the splendour of
the afterglow. Mighty wings as of
bright angels, pink and shining white,
reached up over the sky. The vault was
purple above me, and paled to lilac, then
to green of unimaginable tenderness.
Now I quenched my tears to look, and
then I wept again, weeping no more for
sorrow and loneliness and shame than
for gratitude and delight in beauty. So
fair a world! What had sin to do with
it? I could not make it out.

The shining wings grew paler, faded,
then darkened; the melancholy sound
of cow-bells stole up from the common.
The birds were still; a low wind rustled
the trees. I sat thinking my young