Sleep on, little comforter, in the arms that hold you so lovingly. The strain is lessened, the weary oppression gone. The child's dream, so lovingly told, has brought healing to the weary sister. The unseen guardian watched over them both, the message of love had come to her too, and in this fond belief Queenie fell asleep. CHAPTER V. CALEB RUNCIMAN. "Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow, A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve, A kerchief left all night in the rain, Turned soft so--over-tasked and over-strained And over-lived in this close London life! And yet I should be stronger."--_Aurora Leigh._ One wet evening, towards the end of November, Caleb Runciman stood at the window of his little parlor, straining his eyes wistfully into the darkness. "A wild night," he muttered to himself more than once; "it is raining whole buckets-full, and blowing hard. She will never venture out with the child, and so careful as she is too, bless her dear little motherly heart. I may as well tell Molly to make the tea. Dear, dear, how contrary-wise things will happen sometimes," with which oracular remark the old man rubbed his hands ruefully together, and turned to the fire. It was a wild night certainly. A cold, gusty rain swept the streets of Carlisle; the flickering lamplight shone on glittering pools and dripping water-spouts; the few pedestrians hurried past Caleb's window, casting furtive glances at the warm, inviting gleam from within. Caleb's fire blazed cheerily; a faggot spluttered and hissed half up the little chimney; the blue china pixies on the old-fashioned tiles fairly danced in the light, as did the Dresden shepherdesses, and the two simpering figures in umbrella courtship on the high wooden mantel-piece. These tiles were Emmie's delight. She would sit on the stool at Caleb's feet for hours, following the innocent, baby-faced pixy through a hundred fanciful adventures. The little gentleman in the pink china waistcoat and the lady in the blue scarf were veritable works of art to her. The plaster group of the Holy Family, slightly defaced by smoke and time, excited in her the same profound reverence that a Titian or a Raphael excites in an older mind. She never could be made to understand that the black-framed battle of Trafalgar, painted in flaming reds and yellows, was not a master-piece; there was nothing incongruous to her in the spectacle of Nelson's dying agonies portrayed amid the stage effects of a third rate pantomime; to her the ludicrous was merged in the sublime. It is not in early youth that the one trends so often on the other.