<<Then the devil has led him here,» answered Barbara, flashing into anger. «As for Vala, let her stay with me. She has a good guard at my house. There is Groat and his four sons on one side, and Jeppe Madson and his big brother Har on the other side; and there is David Borson, who is worth a whole ship's crew, to back them in anything for Vala's safety. Stay with me to-day, Nanna, and we will talk this thing out.»

But Nanna shook her head in reply. As she understood it, duty was no peradventure; it was an absolute thing from which there was no turning away. She put Vala's hand into David's hand, and looked at the young man with eyes full of anxiety. He answered the look with one strong word, «Yes,» and she knew he would redeem it with his life if necessary.

Then she turned away, and walked to her home with a direct and rapid energy. She put away thought; she formed no plan; she said no prayer. Her petition had been made in the kirk; she thought there would be a want of faith in repeating a request already promised. She felt even the modesty of a suppliant, and would not continually press into the presence of the Highest, for to the reverent there is ever the veil before the Shechinah.

And this conscious putting aside of all emotion strengthened her. When she saw her home she had no need to slacken her speed or to encourage herself; she walked directly to the door and opened it. There was no one there. The place was empty. The food on the table was untouched. Nothing but a soiled and crumpled kerchief remained of the dreadful visitor. She lifted it with the tongs and cast it into the fire, and then she cleared away every trace of the rejected meal.

Afterward she made some inquiries in the adjoining huts. One woman only had seen his departure. «I could not go to kirk this morning," she said with an air of apology, «for my bairn is very sick, and I saw Nicol Sinclair go away near the noon hour. Drunk he was, and worse drunk than most men can be. His face was red as a hot peat, and he swayed to and fro like a boat on the Gruting Voe. There was something no' just right about the man.» That was all she could learn, and she was very unhappy, for she could imagine no good reason for his departure. In some way or other he was preparing the blow he meant to deal her, and, though it was the Sabbath, there would be no difficulty in finding men whom he could influence. Besides, there was VOL. LII.-87.

old woman who had outlived all family passions but hatred. Against this man, and the money and ill will that would back him, she could do nothing; but she «trusted in God that he would deliver her.»>

So she said to herself, «Patience,» and she sat down to wait, shutting her eyes to the outside world, and drawing to a focus all the strength that was in her. The closed Bible lay upon a table at her side, and occasionally she touched it with her hand. She had not been able to read its promises, but there was comfort in putting herself in contact with them. They seemed more real. And as she sat hour after hour, psalms learned years before, and read many and many a time without apprehension of their meaning, began to speak to her. She saw the words with her spiritual sight, and they shone with their own glory. When midnight struck she looked at the clock and thanked God. Surely she was safe for that night, and she turned the key in her door and went to sleep. And her sleep was that which God giveth to his beloved when they are to be strengthened for many daysa deep, dreamless suspense of all thought and feeling.

Yet, heavenly as the sleep had been, the awakening was a shock. And as the day grew toward noon she was as much troubled by the silence of events as her husband had been by the silence of her lips. She felt the suspense to be unendurable, and she resolved to go to Barbara's and see Vala, and hear whatever there was to hear. But as she was putting on her cloak she saw David coming across the moor, and he was carrying Vala in his arms. «Now,» she said, "I see that I will not need to run after my fate. It will come to me, and there will be no use striving against it. For what must be is sure to happen.»>

Then she turned back into the house, and David followed with unusual solemnity, and laid Vala down on the bed. «She is sleeping,>> he said, «and there is something to tell you, Nanna.»

«About my husband?»

«Yes. He was carried to his own ship last night,» and David's face was grave almost to sternness.

I

«Carried! Have you, then, hurt him, David?»> «No. He is a self-hurter. But this is what know. He went from here to Matilda Sabiston's house. She had gone to kirk with two of her servants, and when she came back she found him delirious on her sofa. The doctor was sent for, and when he said the word typhus Matilda screamed with passion, and

(

F course not. I understand why you do about it. It has been a bad year on the crops, and you don't feel that you can afford to spend money on books; but » -and here the agent bent confidentially forward-«this is a work that you must have. I took special pains to come to see you about it. I came because I had read your letters in the county paper-letters that are attracting attention outside of this county. I knew from them that you were a man of intelligence who could appreciate a great work, and so I came, and I am glad I came. As I walked up the lane I saw a handsome young man for whom I predict a great future-your son, if I am not much mistaken.»

«My boy Abner,» said Daniel Green.

<<I knew it,» asserted the agent, with victorious emphasis. «I knew it-the son of his father, a regular chip off the old block. That boy is going to be a great man. Mark you! I say he will be a great man. It is stamped on his face.»

«Abner is a good boy,» said the old gentleman, and a good son. He has not had the advantages that I had hoped to give him. He was at school less than a year; he ought to have been there several years, but the farm had to be attended to, and I could n't spare him. But he has studied some, and when he gets his chance he will make his mark.»

«Then I'm doubly glad I came,» the agent said, with a tone of real interest. «I'm in time to do you a very great service. You want that boy of yours to succeed in life; you want to help him. That 's natural. You can do it. This great work is your chance. It's the practical education of the century condensed in one volume. Nothing succeeds like success, and this book tells all about success. Put it in the hands of your son, and he will catch the spirit of success just as quick as he would catch the smallpox or the measles. Allow me to show you,» and he moved still closer. «Right here in these pages are the lives of the successful men of America. Not a few, mind you, but all,-every one, -with portraits from photographs taken specially for this great work. Did you know, sir,»-and he drew himself up as if for the communication of some all-important message, -«that of all these men more than two thirds had the course of their lives changed by the influence of books-books, sir, of people and about ` people who had succeeded? Our great Emer

son said that biography was the best guide declared that biography was the only true history. Why, sir, our biggest millionaires owed their rise to fortune to what they read, and what would have become of our Presidents if they had missed the books that launched them on the tide which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune?» This came forth with all the happy eloquence of a man unfettered by fact or the ethics of quotation.

«You want this book. You must have it. It's the last copy, and as I feel an interest in the success of your son, I'm going to let you have it for only three dollars, although every other copy of the edition sold for four. Take it, sir, and you will see the day when you will thank me for having brought it to you.»>

Poor Daniel Green! Fortune had cut out great things for him, but he had not measured up to his destiny. It might have been different if circumstances had been less hostile; but monopolies were so insolent, taxation was so unequal, politics were so corrupt, and the world was so utterly out of joint, that he grew tired of striving, and let the farm run down, and his debts run up, while he railed at fate and wasted his time and substance in letters to the county paper. He dreamed of what he could do if he had the power; but while government and national development and iridescent possibilities of high offices seeking good men claimed his thoughts and his speculations, the whitewash faded from his house, the gates dropped from their hinges, and the fences began to fall away, as if in sympathy with his own discouragement.

The trouble, too, was that his apathy in material things had affected his son Abner. Mrs. Green had died when the boy was ten years old. This good woman, when in health, kept order on the farm by the force of her practical common sense. But when she was gone Mr. Green's few energies drooped into those fine intentions which see much and accomplish nothing. Abner was now twentytwo, a man in age without a man's education and experience. He had been to school only ten months. There his ambition began to take wings, and he wished to do something; but he could not leave his father, and that was the end of it. Even John, who as a waif had come to the farm, and had grown to the dignity of the only hired man on the place, shared the common restraint; but it must be said, in justice to him, that he was the most useful

of the three, because he was not bothered by either imagination or ambition. Content with wages that were never paid, he existed in the full satisfaction of all he wanted to eat and a comfortable place to sleep.

Mr. Green was nursing the book on his lap when Abner and John came from the field: Abner a fine, sturdy fellow, nearly six feet tall, manly in bearing and bright in countenance; John more round than erect, older in years, yet a child in comparison with Abner. «Abner,» said Mr. Green, after John had passed on to the house, «one of the sorrows of my life has been my inability to give you a good education.»>

That's all right, father,» Abner replied cheerfully.

«My son, it is n't all right. I see now that I have been selfish. I might have allowed you to go to school. I can never forgive myself for not allowing you to go; but what's past is past we cannot recall it.» And then, changing his voice, he added in a more practical way: «I have bought this book for you. It is a book on the success of successful men. It tells how they rose from even humbler circumstances than those that surround you. My son, I want you to read it. Study it. You will find practical examples of what I have often told you that success is the grasping of opportunity, the reaching out. When I am gone-» «Now, father, you must not say that.» «Yes, I must, my son. It will soon be time for me to go. I feel it more and more every day.⟫>>

He had been saying this for ten years, but Abner listened as if he had never heard it before. He always humored his father in that way.

<<When I am gone,» repeated the old gentleman, I want you to strike out in the world. It's the only way you can conquer. The soldier who never fights never wins battles, and the mightiest battle that ever was fought is the battle of life. Take the book, Abner, and read it, and remember that no circumstance is too small for your attention. Look to the little things, and you will be great in big things.» For once Mr. Green was right. Two weeks afterward he died. In those two weeks the book had been read and re-read by the son, who found in it a hope he had never felt before, an inspiration that had never moved him. Away down in his soul were longings for something broader and better than the sunrise-tosunset toil on the farm, but they had not dared to find expression until the words that he had read gave them voice and opened his eyes to the possibilities of achievement. At

first it looked so big that his courage faltered, but when he read how boys as poor as himself had started on nothing, and moved up the plane of life to the elevations of fame and fortune, his heart grew stronger.

After the funeral came the public sale. There were more debts than assets, and the creditors pounced upon the little property as soon as the law permitted. The people crowded the house and filled the yard, for November was a dull month, and they had nothing better to do. Abner and John had wandered about bidding good-by to everything. Then came the auctioneer with his blatant voice and coarse wit, turning the long silence of the old place into a bedlam of noise and laughter. After the farm had been bought in by Mr. Anthony Cobb, who held a mortgage on it, Abner's emotions began to get the better of him, and he walked around the corner and turned toward the big poplar-tree, where he hoped to find a bit of solitude.

As he did so a young woman approached from the opposite direction. She was tall, but not so tall as he; she was dressed plainly, but very attractively. She had the clear, clean, kindly comeliness that belongs to sound health and a good home. She was not beautiful, but she had a gentle, graceful, amiable appearance that invited confidence and rewarded admiration. Her face in repose looked practical, but there was in it an indefinable sweetness, and her large eyes were as serene as the quiet blue of the autumn sky.

Jane Cobb! Many a time had she disturbed Abner's thoughts, and many a struggle had he had with himself to forget her. He had been with her at school, he had watched her at church, he had composed unwritten messages of which she never knew; and now of all persons she was standing face to face with him, and a big lump was in his throat.

« How are you, Abner? I did not think I'd come; but as everybody else was here, and the day was so fine, I changed my mind. I want to tell you that I am very sorry.»

«Thank you. And then, with a forced smile that partly dislodged the choking sensation, he added, "I hope you will enjoy it.>>

«No, Abner,» she replied seriously; «I do not enjoy it. It is the saddest thing in life, this breaking up of a home; and when I said I was sorry I meant that you have my deepest sympathy. Are you going to move away from the neighborhood?»

"I don't know,» he answered; «I have not any plans-have n't had time to think of plans.»

She extended her hand to him, and said,