Paula stooped and kissed her. “I am going to get your bed ready,” said she. And without any hesitation now, she opened the door that led into those dim inner regions that but a few minutes before had inspired her with such dread. She went straight to Jacqueline’s room. “It must all be according to Mrs. Hamlin’s wishes,” she cried, and lit the fire on the hearth, and pulled back the curtains yet farther from the bed, and gave the benefit of her womanly touch to the various objects about her, till cheerfulness seemed to reign in a spot once so peopled with hideous memories. Going back to Jacqueline, she helped her to rise, and throwing her arm about her waist, led her into the hall. But here memory, ghastly accusing memory, stepped in, and catching the wretched woman in its grasp, shook her, body and soul, till her shrieks reverberated through that desolate house. But Paula with gentle persistence urged her on, and smiling upon her like an angel of peace and mercy, led her up step after step of that dreadful staircase, till at last she saw her safely in the room of her early girlhood. The sight of it seemed at first to horrify but afterwards to soothe the forlorn being thus brought face to face with her own past. She moved over to the fire and held out her two cramped hands to the blaze, as if she saw an altar of mercy in its welcoming glow. From these she passed tottering and weak to the embroidery-frame, which she looked at for a moment with something almost like a smile; but she hurried by the mirror, and scarcely glanced at a portrait of herself which hung on the wall over her head. To sink on the bed seemed to be her object, and thither Paula accompanied her. But when she came to where it stood, and saw the clothes turned down and the pillows heaped at the head, and the little Bible lying open for her in the midst, she gave a great and mighty sob, and flinging herself down upon her knees, wept with a breaking up of her whole nature, in which her sins, red though they were as crimson, seemed to feel the touch of the Divine love, and vanish away in the oblivion He prepares for all His penitent ones. When everything was prepared and Jacqueline was laid quiet in bed, Paula stole out and down the stairs and wended her way to Mrs. Hamlin’s cottage. She found her sitting up, but far from well, and very feeble. At the first sight of Paula’s face, she started erect and seem to forget her weakness in a moment. “What is it?” she asked; “you look as though you had been gazing on the faces of angels. Has—has my hope come true at last? Has Jacqueline returned? Oh, has my poor, lost, erring child come back?” Paula drew near and gently steadied Mrs. Hamlin’s swaying form. “Yes,” she smiled; and with the calmness of one who has entered the gates of peace, whispered in low and reverent tones: “She lies in the bed that you spread for her, with the Bible held close to her breast.” * * * * *