"Yes, I know; and Gertie reproves me and says I am a sad heathen, and so I am; but I am sure of one thing," speaking in a voice of suppressed emotion: "that if I am ever good enough--God help me for the sinner that I am,--but if I am ever helped to win an entrance in heaven, that my little Nan will be the first to see me, and she will come running to me, the darling, and I shall feel the clasp of her sweet arms about me, and the softness of her baby face against mine; and 'father's come,' she will say that first, I know," breaking off hurriedly as the tears came into Queenie's eyes. "And a little child shall lead them." The words seemed to come to her mind with sudden, irrepressible force. What if he were right, though he spoke only the language of love's fantasy? Might not the baby hand be stretched out to him through the darkness and silence that lay between those two loving souls, ever beckoning him on to possible good and high endeavour, through devious wanderings, past yawning pitfalls, over the tumultuous sea of life, beckoning with faint invisible touches, ever higher and higher. "Father's come." Fanciful, and yet what more probable in the mystery of Providence and God's dealing with men than this, that amid the shining crowds the form of his little Nan should softly glide towards him; and even there in God's bright home a little child shall lead them. And so with all apparent quietness, but with many secret anxieties, the winter wore softly away. A week's holiday at Christmas had given the young school-mistress a short reprieve from her duties, and she had taken advantage of it to pay a three days' visit to her old friend Caleb Runciman. Emmie had pleaded hard to accompany her, but the weather was unusually inclement, and Queenie shrank from exposing the child's delicacy to such a test; so she remained under Mrs. Fawcett's charge, as Langley was engrossed with continual visits to Karldale Grange. Caleb and Molly made much of their visitor, but the old man grumbled a good deal over his favorite's looks. "Well, Miss Queenie, I don't believe school-keeping has agreed with you after all," he began, shaking his head. "She is thin, Molly, is she not, and looks a bit graver than she used to look?" "Now, Caleb, don't begin fancying such nonsense. I was never better in my life. Think of this hearty meal I have just eaten; thin indeed!" and Queenie opened her brown eyes and threw up her pretty head with a movement of disdain.