"In the happy days, I tore off a leaf from your Bible calendar, and one morning, when everything was black and despairing, I found it in my bag. It read, 'Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.' I suppose I was like the drowning man, and this promise, impersonal and silent, was a straw to be clung to blindly. At any rate, I couldn't throw it away; and it persisted in ringing through my confused head. Soon your letter came. Oh, Mrs. Porter--" Linda choked and ceased. Her companion laid a comforting hand upon her for a moment and withdrew it. "You will never know what you did for me," went on the girl presently: "do you know what it means to a despairing one to be given a gleam of hope? You can't, unless you know it by experience." "I know it by experience," returned Mrs. Porter quietly. Her companion glanced around at the calm face for a fleeting instant. Could it be possible that such poise would ever be won for herself? "It was a willingness to listen to you, and the hope that I could believe you, that brought me, shrinking and shuddering as I was, out of my home and into the train and here. Then, on the train, came this letter that Aunt Belinda told you about. It brought me more of peace and hope than I had dreamed of. I have dared to think since then. Here it is." The speaker passed to her companion the envelope she had been holding tightly. Mrs. Porter accepted it in silence and took out the letter. As she read, a deeper color mounted to her cheeks, but Linda did not observe this. She had dropped her hands in her lap and her eyes were fixed on the clear-cut horizon line. "Dear Bertram!" exclaimed Mrs. Porter as she finished. Then she read the letter again. Finally, she folded the sheet, put it in its envelope and handed it back to Linda. Her face wore the radiance for which her pupils were wont to watch as the highest reward for achievement. "Splendid," she said. "Tell me why news so vital should have been addressed to Miss Barry instead of to you." Linda's grave gaze met hers. "I don't like to tell you, Mrs. Porter," she answered. "You needn't fear, dear child." "Oh, I can't go into it again, I can't!" exclaimed Linda, suddenly averting her head. "As you please, dear. I don't want to force you; but I know so well that what you quoted a few minutes ago is as true as that two and two make four. Instead of the thorn _will_ come up the fir tree, as soon as you cease to give the thorn nourishment." "I give it nourishment?" Linda's brow contracted. "Do you mean that I nurse grief? You're mistaken."