“Ah, have you not helped us already?” said the young girl, smiling through gathering tears; “for I think he will come back some day and be glad to learn that there is no longer anything to keep us apart.” “Yes, I am sure of it. And now for the story.” “You shall have it if you wish, aunt,” said Ethel earnestly, a slight tremulousness and a sound of tears in her voice; “but to give you the whole I must also tell the story of my childhood’s days.” “Let me hear it, child! let me have the whole!” the Madame answered almost impatiently; and Ethel at once complied. She began with the first meeting between Espy and herself when they were mere babies; drew a lovely picture of her life in infancy and early youth; described the terrible scenes connected with the death of her adopted parents and the circumstances that followed, including her formal betrothal, the search for the missing papers, the quarrels and estrangements, her visit to Clearfield, interview with Mrs. Dobbs, arrival in Chicago, the conversation in Miss Lea’s boudoir, the sight of Espy in the church the next Sunday, her interview with him in Mr. Lea’s library; and, lastly, the manner in which she had learned the fact of his sudden departure from the city the very day that she first entered the Madame’s house, coming there in pursuit of her calling as a dressmaker’s apprentice. It was a long story, but the Madame’s interest never flagged. “Ah,” she said, drawing a long breath at its conclusion, and feeling for her niece’s hand that she might press it affectionately, for it was growing dark in the room, “my poor child, what you have suffered! How did you endure it all? how did you have courage to give up the property and go to work for your living?” “It was God who helped me,” said Ethel low and reverently, “else I should have sunk under the repeated blows that took all my earthly treasures from me. But He was left me; the joy of the Lord was my strength; and, dear aunt, there is no other strength like that.” Madame Le Conte sighed. “I wish I was as good as you are, my little Pansy,” she said, stroking the young girl’s hair caressingly. “But I intend to get religion before I die. I shall need it when it comes to that,” she added, with a shudder. “I need it to live by,” remarked Ethel very gently. “‘Oh, who could bear life’s stormy doom, Did not Thy wing of love Come sweetly wafting, through the gloom, Our peace-branch from above!’ “But, dear aunt, don’t tell me I am good; I am not, and my only hope is in trusting solely in God’s offered pardon through the atoning blood and imputed righteousness of Christ.” “You never harmed anybody, Pansy, and so I’m sure you are safe enough.” “That would not save me, aunt. ‘Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ Jesus said, and His own is the only righteousness that does that.”