“Hagar, my love, I have come to have a talk with you: my dear child, what is the matter between you and Raymond? why have you grieved and repulsed him again? and, if I am not very much mistaken, permitted him to make arrangements for that foreign mission?” “Did he tell you that, Aunt Sophie?” said Hagar, turning around. “Of course not, my love; I met him coming down, I saw his face overshadowed, and I had seen just before that, the superscription of the letter in the hand of Tarquinius; now, what is it all about? Trust me, Raymond looks distressed to death.” Hagar ran her slender, dark fingers, through her glittering blue-black ringlets, and looked down in perplexity into the soft brown eyes of Sophie, raised to hers with their old look of pleading love. Then turning her eyes quickly away, she looked from the window; she did not wish to speak upon the subject. “You want a loving trust, Hagar,” said Sophie, sadly. “Perhaps I do,” as sadly replied the girl. “I never saw one so young as you with so little confidence, so little trust as you have—your distrust is more like a hardened man or woman of the world than a simple girl, a maiden not yet eighteen.” “But I am _not_ a simple girl—love, hope, trust, faith, were crushed out of me while I was yet an infant, and you know it; or perhaps you do not know it, Sophie; though you had some hand in the work.” “Hagar, love! you afflict me—tell me what you mean by that?” “Nothing! nothing!” “Nay, tell me, Hagar! I must know the meaning of your sad words.” “Nothing! nothing! I will explain nothing! account for nothing! investigate, analyse nothing! I will accuse no one! I did not mean to hint at a wrong! I was betrayed into it!” “This is growing very serious by your energy of manner, Hagar—have I injured you in any way?—my own dear child, do not turn away, but answer me.” “No, no; never lifted your finger, or raised your voice, to hurt me the least. Oh! nonsense, my dearest aunt! I am a scamp to make you sad—nothing! only _this_, that _my_ experience has so schooled me, young as you think I am, that I am afraid to launch my happiness in the uncertain seas of other hearts.” “You want faith, Hagar. Ah! Hagar, I partly guess now what you mean; but if you had known how much I loved you, all the time you thought I was neglecting you! Have faith, Hagar. Good Heavens!” said she, speaking with unaccustomed energy, “have faith! the world could not go on without faith. There is a great deal of faith in the world—social faith, and commercial faith; political faith, and domestic faith, and Christian faith, which embraces all the others; but there is not faith enough anywhere—and you, Hagar, are deplorably deficient; cultivate that small speck of faith that is in your heart until it grows strong and gives you happiness. You _cannot_ live without faith—with it you have all things, without it you have nothing. Have faith first in God, in His wisdom, goodness, power, and love, in His all-surrounding con”—