"Oh, I think she is brave and strong! It is not that. But I want her to have two or three untroubled years before the work of her life begins; and then--" "And what is the work of her life to be? Is she to choose it for herself, or is it to be chosen for her, as your work has been? Eunice, don't you think you may be too tender with your sister? Don't you think that the Lord has her and her life in His keeping, and that you need not take that burden on you?" Eunice smiled. "We are bidden to `bear one another's burdens,' you know." "Yes; and we are told that `every one shall bear his own burden.' You cannot shield your sister from all the troubles of life, and it is not well that she should be so shielded. However, all this will keep for another time; and I am more than thankful that there is nothing specially painful to tell her now." And then he asked--"Will you come down with me, as I promised the girls you should?" "Not to-day, I think. I will rest, and be ready for Fidelia." She was very tired, the doctor knew by the wavering colour on her cheek; and he shrank from the thought of telling her something which he wished no one but himself to tell. Afterwards, when he had spoken, he said to himself that he need not have been so much afraid. "Eunice, I heard from my brother Justin lately. He is coming home. He is on his way. He may be here any day." "Is he coming home at last? I am glad--for you especially. All his friends will be glad to see him again." She spoke quietly and cordially, just as any of his friends might have spoken. Then there were a few more words, and then he went away. Eunice waited till she heard the latch of the gate fall, and waited still till the sounds of his wheels died away in the distance. Then she rose and took her last loaves from the oven, and carried them away to their own place. Then she went slowly upstairs and laid herself down on her bed to rest. And there Fidelia found her sleeping, with the traces of tears on her face, but with God's own peace resting upon it also. CHAPTER THREE. EUNICE. Eunice Marsh might well say that the first seventeen years of her life had been happy years. Her father, a man useful and much beloved, had during that time been minister of the only church in Hopeville, a town in the southern part of the state. She had lost her mother when she was a little child, but her loss had been well supplied by the love and care of her mother's mother, with whom she had lived, in the house that was now her home, till the time of her father's second marriage.