To “Jarvist May’s widow” Lucy found it easy to confide the fears—nay, the absolute despair—which now filled her concerning Charlie’s fate. To none of the others had she done this. They had tendered their hopes to her, and she, little knowing how faint they felt them, had made as though she could at least entertain these. In that way they had sought to comfort her, and she had accepted their kind intention, even as gentle hearts accept the little useless gifts of childish good-will. But this widowed woman brought consolation up from great depths lying calm beneath whatever wind might rise. “God has got you, and God has got your husband, wherever he is. How can you be apart, my dear? Why, dear, if God has taken him to Himself, he may be nearer to you now than in the days when he was living here and had to go out to his business, leaving you at home. And if he’s still somewhere on earth, dear, don’t you hope he’s taking care of himself and keeping bright and cheery in the faith that you are doing the same? If he is living and can’t send word to you, that must feel as bad for him as for you to get no word. Don’t you hope that he trusts you are keeping up? And as he is certainly all right—SOMEWHERE—you’ve just got to keep up for his sake. Yes, my dear, cry, cry”—as Lucy looked up with a piteous attempt to smile. “He wouldn’t mind that so long as it does you good and washes the clouds out of your heart. That’s what tears are meant for—to make us smile the sweeter afterwards.” Mrs. May’s visit rose out of her having seen the newspaper paragraph concerning the safety of the _Slains Castle_. “I came away to see you just as soon as I could,” she narrated simply. “Thought I, poor dear, she’s got to go through for months the waiting and the watching that I had only for a few hours. All I can say to her is, that I know what those few hours were, and that none but God could have helped me through them, and none but God can help her through her longer trial. But that’s enough, for God is over everything, and under everything, and in everything; and if He upholds you, so does everything else.” She joined with Mrs. Grant’s counsel, in whispering to Miss Latimer that nothing would be so good for Lucy as to proceed with her “regular work,” to keep her life on in a straight line from where her husband left her, and not to have to face any “beginning again.” She was actually glad to find that Lucy’s present absence from her classes arose from a sheer practical necessity, and not from any yielding to grief. Then Mrs. May had a most unexpected proposal to make. It appeared that she had let her house furnished for a whole year to people who were to provide their own service. She had not quite relished doing this, as it deprived her of her “work,” but she had felt she ought not to refuse a good offer, since her last season had been as a whole but a poor one, while her strength had somewhat failed under a great rush of summer visitors for a few short weeks.