Marion felt the wrench of events more keenly. To the young everything that comes to an end is the end of the world. No one can be so hopeless as the young. It is the middle-aged and the old that have the power of hoping on through everything, for they have come to the knowledge that the soul survives all its disappointments and all its calamities. This is the good wine God keeps for our latter days. Marion rallied as soon as she received Richard's first letter from his ship; for it is the sorrow not sure which we feel to be unbearable. That letter enabled her to locate her lover, and, though the halo of distance and the mystery of night travel were around him, her soul sought him out and found in the romance of the situation some balm for her anxiety not without value. For the young like to believe that their trials are not common trials, and Marion knew of no girl whose lover had been torn from her side and sent off to India for nearly two years without notice or preparation for such an exile. The lovers of all her friends had been acceptable to their parents, but her lover's proposal had been met by almost insolent refusal and threat. And he was of ancient and noble lineage, and she was certain none of the girls in the Church of the Disciples had ever had a lord for a lover. She felt then that her grief was a very romantic one, and when grief can consider its romantic features it is not far from comfort. Indeed, in a month the home affairs of the Minister's house had their settled regular observance. There had been happy letters from both Richard and Donald, and there was the promise of a regular continuance of this new element in their lives--an element of constant change and of unusual events--conversations about letters received and sent--and the looking forward to those journeying to them by day and night. These things gave to their lives a sense of romance and of far-off happenings; for our thoughts and conversation do affect our surroundings, just as rain affects the atmosphere. It was not as well with the Minister as with his daughter and sister-in-law. To him the world had become a bewildering maze of sorrow and perplexity. Until his son had gone he had not realized how dear Donald was to him. Now his empty place at the table was a constant shock, his voice haunted the house, and he was sometimes so positive that he heard him going upstairs, whistling "Listen to the Mocking Bird," that he silently opened his study door to look and listen. And though Marion had quickly gone back with all her heart to his fatherly love, though she sat with him and read to him and sang to him, he missed his boy. Oh, how he missed him!