"About doing. So much depends. I get so tired--feeling how responsible everything makes me. I wish I were a little child again! Or that somebody would just take me and tell me where to go, and where to stay, and what to do, and what not. From minute to minute, as the things come up." Roger Armstrong, with his great, chastened soul, yearned over the child as she spoke; so gladly he would have taken her, at that moment, to his heart, and bid her lean on him for all that man might give of help--of love--of leading! If she had told him, in that moment, all her doubt, as for the instant of his pause she caught her breath with swelling impulse to do! "'And they shall all be led of God';" said the minister. "It is only to be willing to take His way rather than one's own. All this that seems to depend painfully upon oneself, depends, then, upon Him. The act is human--the consequences become divine." Faith was silenced then. There was no appeal to human help from that. Her impulse throbbed itself away into a lonely passiveness again. There was a distance between these two that neither dared to pass. A word was spoken between mother and daughter as they parted for the night. "Mother! I have such a thing to think of--to decide!" It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the good-night kiss was taken. "Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater joy for you." Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood? The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life. Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, from so far! "Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday. "Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa." Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother: "I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the kitchen staircase to her own room.