"Easily explained! I stopped down the road, at a house, half-tavern, half-store, where I espied 'Post Office,' painted upon a shingle, hung out of a dirty window; and inquired the name of the place. 'Thompsonburg;' said the P.M. 'Burg,' indeed! 'I thought there was an office in this neighborhood, called 'Oakland;'" said I. "'Oh! that's discontinued more than a year ago;' answered he. ''Twas at the Cross-roads below.'" Simple solution of a mystery which had led her to doubt her best earthly friends! Charley looked at her intently. "'Indisposition,' forsooth! Why, I'll be hanged--" "No you wont, Charley! Don't say so." "Shot, then! if I am sure that I am not talking to a spirit! You've been to Death's door. What made you sick?" "Oh! a variety of causes." "Which means, it's no business of mine to inquire. All I have to say is, that your friends would not have treated you, as you have them. If I had died in Missouri, I would have left 'good-bye,' and a lock of my hair for you. You might have departed this life twenty times, and we been none the wiser." "How quarrelsome you are! I'll never do so again, if you'll forgive me this once." "Forgive! I have nothing to forgive--you were privileged to do as you pleased;--only, if you had said adieu to the land of the living, it would have been a gratification to us to know it." Ida laughed out so merrily that Mrs. Grant, who was superintending the setting of the tea-table, raised her spectacles to look at her, and smiled gratifiedly. She and her husband sat at the table, and the guest's "sociable ways" ingratiated him with them, before the meal was half over. They retired with the waiters, and Charley, dropping his bantering tone, established himself for a "quiet coze." It was strange that he should be the first confidant of Ida's change of heart;--he, whom men styled careless--sometimes "scoffer." He did not scoff now;--he paid diligent heed to her recital, and when it was finished--"From my soul, I congratulate you!" he exclaimed. "Would to Heaven, that I too believed!" "You may;" said Ida, timidly. "You do not know the thickness of the crust around my heart, Ida;--the unbelief, and ingratitude and worldliness. I can battle with men, and wear a bravado mask; but I do not forget that I have a soul, and that it must be attended to. Whether I will ever do it, I cannot say. I think I must be the most hardened of sinners;--Lynn's death would have subdued a less obdurate heart;--and do you know that, while thoroughly persuaded that it was a judgment aimed full at me--for he was my dearest friend, and I felt his loss, most of all who mourned him--I hated the Power which had dealt the blow, and scorned angrily the presumption, that I could be forced into measures!"