"Why, dear child, we can always be together in spirit. 'It is notdistance in miles that separates people but distance in feeling.'Emerson says,--'A man really lives where his thought is,' so you can bein Vernon and I in Marlborough,--each of us held close in the hush ofGod's love, which 'in its breadth is a girdle that encompasses the globeand a mantle that enwraps it.'"

Evadne caught Mrs. Everidge's face between her arms and kissed itreverently. "I mean to devote my life to making other people ecstatic, asyou do, my saint," she exclaimed.

* * * * *

"Board!" The conductor's cry of warning smote the air and the trainpassengers made a final bustle of preparation for a start. Mrs. Everidgecaught Evadne close in a last embrace.

"My precious little sister, I shall miss you every day!" Then she wasgone, and Evadne, looking eagerly out of her window, saw the dear face,from which the tears had been swept away, smiling brightly at her fromthe platform.

"You magnificent Christian!" she cried. "You will give others thesunshine always!"

* * * * *

The train steamed into the station at Marlborough and again Louis cameforward to greet her with a look of admiration on his unusually animatedface.

"Well done, Evadne! If the atmosphere of Vernon can work suchtransformation as this, it ought to be bottled up and sold at twentydollars the dozen. You go away looking like a snow-wraith, and youreturn a blooming Hebe."