"Exactly the summer we expected. Sometimes the minister called, and talked in an exciting manner about Calvinism, and the smallpox; and we have been surrounded by a crowd of relatives. Mother has enjoyed them very much; she had not seen some of her fourth and fifth cousins for nearly seven years; they had increased in number considerably during that interval, and their names, and dispositions, the sicknesses they had been through, the various talents they showed, have all been to talk over a great many times. Oh, mother has enjoyed it much! It makes no matter about Christina and myself." "It does make matter, Isabel. This coming winter I intend to see you go out as much as you desire." "Thank you, brother. Christina will enjoy the opportunities. I have outlived the desire for amusements. I would rather travel, and see places and famous things. People no longer interest me." "I think with a little inquiry that can be managed. I am so happy, Isabel, I wish every one else to be happy." She looked at her brother wonderingly, and at night as the sisters sat doing their hair in Christina's room she said: "Love must be an amazing thing, Christina, to change any one the way it has changed Robert Campbell. The man has been in a sense converted--he has found grace, whether it be the grace of God, or the grace of Love, I know not, no, nor anybody else just yet." "St. John says, 'God is love.' I have often wondered about those words." "Then keep your wonder. If you ask for explanations about things, all the wonder and the beauty goes out of them. When I was at school, and had to pull a rose to pieces and write down all the Latin names of its structure, its beauty was gone. The rose was explained to us, but it wasn't a rose any longer. God is Love. We will thank St. John for telling us that beautiful truth, but we will not ask for explanations. Maybe you may find out some day all that Love means. You are not too old, and would be handsome if you were dressed becomingly, and were happy." "Happy?" "Yes. Happiness makes people beautiful. Look at Robert. He was rather good-looking before he was in love, he is now a very handsome man. Theodora has worked wonders in his appearance." "He takes more pains with his dress." "That helps, of course." "My hair is very good yet, Isabel." "You have splendid hair, and fine eyes. Properly dressed you would not look over twenty-two years old." "You think so, because you love me a little." "I love you better than I love anything else. We have suffered a great deal together. I do not mean afflictions and big troubles, but a lifelong, never-lifted repression and depression, and a perfect starvation of heart and soul." "Not soul, Isabel. We could always go to the Kirk, and we had our Bible and good books, and the like." "It was all dead comfort. There was no life, no love in it." "Maybe it was our fault, perhaps we ought to have stood up for our rights. Girls have begun to do so now."