The pious heart of the young girl thrilled as she read this beautiful and appropriate text. "Surely, oh God, Thou art here," was the unspoken language of that young, believing heart, "here in this lonely cottage, here by this bed of sickness, and here also in this trembling, fearing, yet trusting spirit. In every life-beat throbbing in my veins, Thy awful steps I hear. Yet Thou canst not come, Thou canst not go, for Thou art ever near, unseen, yet felt, an all pervading, glorious presence." Had any one seen Helen, seated by that solitary hearth, with her hands clasped over those holy pages, her mild, devotional eyes raised to Heaven, the light quivering in a halo round her brow, they might have imagined her a young Saint, or a young Sister of Charity, ministering to the sufferings of that world whose pleasures she had abjured. A low knock was heard at the door. It must be the young doctor, for who else would call at such an hour? Yet Helen hesitated and trembled, holding her breath to listen, thinking it possible it was but the pressure of the wind, or some rat tramping within the walls. But when the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp, entered the narrow passage, closing the door softly after her, removed the massy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe, she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight of this transcendently handsome young man. "Is terror the only emotion I can inspire--after so long an absence, too?" he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. "Forgive me if I have alarmed you, but forbidden your father's house, and knowing your presence here, I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I leave these regions, perhaps forever." "Impossible, Mr. Clinton," cried Helen, recovering, in some measure, from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house, it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering a hasty "Good-night," and was about to close the door, when Clinton glided in, shutting the door after him.