Rachel Gray Part 25

"Never mind, Rachel," he said, "never mind."

"Father, father," she cried, "you know me, say you know me."

But she asked too much, it was but a dawn of intelligence that had returned; never was the full day to shine upon earth.

"Never mind, Rachel," he said again, "never mind."

But though the first ardour of her hopes was damped, her joy was exquisite and deep. Her father knew her, he had uttered her name with kindness, in his feeble and imperfect and childish way, he loved her!

What more then was needed by one who like the humble lover recorded by the Italian poet, had ever

"Desired much, hoped little, nothing asked."

Somewhat late that same evening, Richard Jones knocked at Rachel's door.

As she opened to him the light she held shone on her face, and though he was not an observant man, he was struck with her aspect. There was a flush on her cheek, a light in her eyes, a smile on her lips, a radiance and a joy in Rachel's face which Richard Jones had never seen there before. He looked at her inquiringly, but she only smiled and showed him in.

And now, reader, one last picture before we part.

It is evening, as you know, and three are sitting in the little parlour of Rachel Gray. An autumn evening it is, somewhat chill with a bright fire burning in the grate, and lighting up with flickering flame the brown furniture and narrow room. And of these three who sit there, one is a grey, childish old man in an arm-chair; another, a man who is not old, but whose hair has turned prematurely white with trouble and sorrow; the third is a meek, thoughtful woman with a book on her knees, who sits silently brooding over the words her lips have uttered; for she has been reading how the Lord gives and how the Lord takes away, and how we yet must bless the name of the Lord.

The good seed of these words has not been shed on a barren soil. As Richard Jones sits and dreams of his lost darling, he also dreams of their joyful meeting some day on the happier sh.o.r.e, and perhaps now that time has pa.s.sed over his loss and that its first bitterness has faded away, perhaps he confesses with humble and chastened heart, that meet and just was the doom which s.n.a.t.c.hed from him his earthly idol, and, for a while, took away the too dearly loved treasure of his heart.

And Rachel Gray, too, has her thoughts. As she looks at her father, and whilst thankful for what she has obtained, as she yet longs, perhaps, for the full gift she never can possess; if her heart feels a pang, if repining it questions and says: "Oh! why have I not too a father to love and know me, not imperfectly, but fully--completely," a sweet and secret voice replies: "You had set your heart on human love, and because you had set your heart upon it, it was not granted to you. Complain not, murmur not, Rachel, if thou hast not thy father upon earth, remember that thou hast thy Father in Heaven!"

THE END.