"Do not promise, my dear Helen, for you know not your own strength. But, remember, that without _faith_ you will grope in darkness through the world--faith in your friends--faith in your God--and I will add--faith in yourself. From the time I first saw you a little, terror-stricken child, to the present moment, I have sought only your happiness and good--and yet forgetting all the past, you distrusted my motives even now, and your heart rose up against me. From the first dawn of your being to this sweet, star-lighted moment, God has been to you a tender, watchful parent, tenderer than any earthly parent, kinder than any earthly friend--and yet you fear to trust yourself to His providence, to remain with Him who fills immensity with His presence. You have no faith in yourself, though there is a legion of angels, nestling, with folded wings in that young heart, ready to fly forth at your bidding, and fulfil their celestial mission. Come, Helen," added he, rising, and lifting her at the same time from her lowly seat, "let us go in--but tell me first that I am forgiven." "Forgiven!" cried she, fervently. "How can I ever thank you, ever be sufficiently grateful for your goodness?" "By treasuring up my words, and remembering them when you are far away. I have influence over you now, because you are so very young, and know so little of the world, but a few years hence it will be very different. You may think of me then as a severe mentor, a cold, unfeeling sage, and wonder at the gentleness with which you bore my reproofs, and the docility with which you yielded to my will." "I shall always think of you as the best and truest friend I ever had in the world," cried Helen, enthusiastically, as they entered the sitting-room, where Mrs. Hazleton and Alice awaited them. "Because he sent you out into the woods alone?" said Mrs. Hazleton, smiling, "young despot that he is." "Yes," replied Helen, "for I feel so much better, stronger and happier for having gone. Then, if possible, I love Alice more than ever." "How do you account for that, Helen?" asked Arthur. "I don't know," she answered, "unless it is I went through a trial for her sake." "Helen is a metaphysician," said the young doctor. "She could not have given a better solution." CHAPTER VI. "And can it be those heavenly eyes Blue as the blue of starry skies, Those eyes so clear, so soft so bright, Have never seen God's blessed light?" Helen returned to her father's, to prepare for her departure to the school, which Mittie was about to leave. Arthur had long resolved to place Alice in an Institution for the blind, and as there was a celebrated one in the same city to which Helen was bound, he requested Mr. Gleason to be her guardian on the journey, and suffer her to be the companion of Helen. This arrangement filled the two young girls with rapture, and reconciled them to the prospect of leaving home, and of being cast among strangers in a strange city.