unfolded to the sunshine, leaf by leaf, and God's angels might have
smiled benignly as they watched the development of good in that little
soul, amid the depressing atmosphere that surrounded it.

From the day that her poor father left home and went up to the
hospital a pauper to die there, these feelings had grown stronger
and stronger within the bosom of the child. His words, unheeded at
the time, came back to her with power. The passages read over so often
to a careless ear from his Bible, seemed to have taken music in their
remembrance, that haunted her all the time.

She did not know it, but the atmosphere of prayers, unheard save in
heaven, was around her. From its pauper bed at Bellevue a strong
earnest soul was pleading for that child, and thus God sent his angel
down to trouble the waters of life within her.

As we grow good, a sense of the beautiful always awakens within us;
and this became manifest in Mary Fuller. For the first time the
squalid misery of her home became a subject of self-reproach, and
with a thoughtful cloud upon her brow, she set herself patiently to
work drawing out all the scant elements of comfort that the place
afforded. Out of this grew a longing for the presence of her father,
that he too might enjoy the benefit of her exertion.

Never in her life had she so yearned for a sight of that pale face.
It seemed as if the trouble and darkness in her soul must turn to
light when he came. With this intense desire arose a thought that
he might return home without warning. The thought grew into hope,
and at last strengthened into faith.