Elsie sat down in silence and gazed wistfully in her mother’s face, as the aged parent removed the bonnet from her head, that poor head whose ever burning heat had scattered those long black tresses so heavily with snow. “See,” said the woman, trembling beneath the joy of that look, “there is the old pear-tree yet, white with blossoms. I am sure we might find half a dozen robins’ nests in the boughs, if you were only young enough to climb them, Elsie.” Elsie smiled. Some vague association seemed breaking through her mind. “To-morrow you shall go down there, darling; father and I will go anywhere with you.” “Anywhere?” said Elsie, with a fierce look. “Then take me to _him_.” The old lady recoiled, and looked wistfully at her husband. “Take me to _him_, I say!” almost shrieked the daughter, gazing angrily from her father to her mother. “No, no,” said Catharine, quietly, “that is for me. They must show you nothing but the brook, the birds, and these beautiful trees. I must do the rest. Come.” As if spellbound, the insane woman arose and followed the young girl. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE CLOSED LIBRARY. Whence came the young woman who made her advent in the last chapter? So fair, so gentle in her manners, and yet with an authority of character that made itself respected,—how came she to know the aged couple, whose home was hereafter to be her own? They knew that she had been the inmate of an Insane Asylum; for there she had learned to love and protect their only child, who was all the dearer to them because of her infirmity. They knew that she had entered this institution, under the care of as good and true a woman as ever lived, from a keen desire to find some place where her daily bread could be earned in seclusion, mingled with a gentle wish to benefit humanity in some way. The desire to do good to others usually brings its own opportunity, and Catharine had found that the wish is in itself one of the brightest and safest steps toward happiness when the soul is troubled. It had been the destiny of this young creature to mingle with strange scenes before her character had acquired its natural strength, and through this fiery furnace her spirit came forth pure and strong as gold. From her first entrance into the Asylum a singular fascination drew Catharine toward this woman, whose madness was full of child-like trust and poetical refinement. In moments of excitement, Elsie’s mind seemed burning with thoughts, that in a sane person, capable of conversation and contiguity, would have produced thrilling poetry.