A slow drizzling rain whitened the distant hills, that seemed to blanch in their helplessness as the wind smote them like a flail; and it wove a grayish veil over the leafless boughs of bending, shivering elms, on the long, dim avenue. The wintry afternoon closed swiftly, and, in its dusky dreariness, Salome listened to the tattoo of the rain on the roof, and to the _miserere_ that wailed through the lonely chambers of her soul. The chill at her heart froze her to numbness and oblivion of the coldness of the atmosphere, and, when a servant came in to close the window against the slanting sleet, she lay so still that the woman thought her asleep, and stole away on tip-toe. The room grew dark; but, through the half-opened door, the light from the hall lamp crept in and fell on the gilded frame and painted face of the portrait, tracing a silvery path along the gloomy wall. As the night deepened, that wave of light rippled and glittered until the handsome features in the picture seemed to belong to some hierarch who peeped from a window of heaven, into a world drenched with unlifting darkness. That oval piece of canvas had become the one fetich to which Salome's heart clung in silent adoration, defiant of the iconoclastic touch of reason and the adverse decree of womanly pride; for natures such as hers will always grovel in the dust, hugging the mutilated fragments of their idol, rather than bow at some new, fretted shrine, where other images hold sway, commanding worship. Looking up almost wolfishly at that tranquil, shining countenance, she said to her sullen, mourning heart,-- "There are no more like him, and, if we lose him, there is nothing left in life, and all hope is at an end, and _finis_ shall be printed on the first page of the book of our existence; and ruin, like a pitiless pall, shall cover what might have been a happy, possibly a grand and good, human career. We did not intend to love him,--no, no; we tried hard to hate him who stood between us and affluence and indolent ease, but he conquered us by his matchless magnanimity, and shamed our ignoble aims and base selfishness, and put us under his royal feet; and now we would rather be trampled by Ulpian, our king, than crowned by any other man. Let us plead with Christ to spare the only pilot who can save us from eternal shipwreck." Lying there so helpless yet defiant in her desolation, some subtle thread of association, guided, perhaps, by the invisible fingers of her guardian angel, led her mind to a favorite couplet often quoted by Dr. Grey,-- "I heard faith's low, sweet singing, in the night, And, groping through the darkness, touched God's hand." If the painted lips in the aureola on the wall had parted and audibly uttered these words, they would scarcely have impressed her more powerfully as a message from the absent; and, rising instantly, the orphan prayed in chastened, humbled tones for strength to be patient, for ability to trust God's wisdom and mercy.