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“I can think of nothing now but Miriam!” said Mrs. Darlington. “Oh, if she were back again, safe from the toils that have been thrown around her, I think I would be the most thankful of mortals! Oh, my child! my child!”

What could Henry say to comfort his mother? Nothing. And he remained silent.

Long after this, Mrs. Darlington, with Henry and Edith, were sitting together in painful suspense. No word had been spoken by either for the space of nearly an hour. The clock struck ten.

“I would give worlds to see my dear, dear child!” murmured Mrs. Darlington.

Just then a carriage drove up to the door and stopped. Henry sprang down stairs; but neither Edith nor her mother could move from where they sat. As the former opened the street door, Miriam stood with her uncle on the threshold. Henry looked at her earnestly and tenderly for an instant, and then, staggering back, leaned against the wall for support.

“Where is your mother?” asked Mr. Ellis.

“In her own room,” said Henry, in a voice scarcely audible.

Miriam sprang up the stairs with the fleetness of an antelope, and, in a few moments, was sobbing on her mother’s bosom.

“Miriam! Miriam!” said Mrs. Darlington, in a thrilling voice, “do you return the same as when you left?”

“Yes, thank God!” came from the maiden’s lips.

“Thank God! thank God!” responded the mother, wildly. “Oh, my child, what a fearful misery you have escaped!”

In a few minutes, the mother and sisters were joined by Henry.

“Where is your uncle?” asked Mrs. Darlington.

“He has gone away; but says that he will see you to-morrow.”

Over the remainder of that evening we will here draw a veil.

CHAPTER XI.

ON the next morning, only Mrs. Darlington met her boarders at the breakfast-table, when she announced to them that she had concluded to close her present business, and seek some new mode of sustaining her family; at the same time, desiring each one to find another home as early as possible.

At the close of the third day after this, Mrs. Darlington sat down to her evening meal with only her children gathered at the table. A subdued and tranquil spirit pervaded each bosom, even though a dark veil was drawn against the future. To a long and troubled excitement there had succeeded a calm. It was good to be once more alone, and they felt this. “Through what a scene of trial, disorder, and suffering have we passed!” said Edith. “It seems as if I had just awakened from a dream.”

“And such a dream!” sighed Miriam.

“Would that it were but a dream!” said Mrs. Darlington. “But, alas! the wrecks that are around us too surely testify the presence of a devastating storm.”

“The storm has passed away, mother,” said Edith; “and we will look for calmer and brighter skies.”

“No bright skies for us, I fear, my children,” returned the mother, with a deeper tinge of sadness in her voice.

“They are bright this hour to what they were a few days since,” said Edith, “and I am sure they will grow brighter. I feel much encouraged. Where the heart is willing, the way is sure to open. Both Miriam and I are willing to do all in our power, and I am sure we can do much. We have ability to teach others; and the exercise of that ability will bring a sure reward. I like Uncle Hiram’s suggestion very much.”

“But the humiliation of soliciting scholars,” said the mother.

“To do right is not humiliating,” quickly replied Edith.

“It is easy to say this, my child; but can you go to Mrs. Lionel, for instance, with whose family we were so intimate, and solicit her to send Emma and Cordelia to the school you propose to open, without a smarting sense of humiliation? I am sure you cannot.”

Edith communed with her own thoughts for some moments, and then answered–

“If I gave way to false pride, mother, this might be so; but I must overcome what is false and evil. This is as necessary for my happiness as the external good we seek–nay, far more so. Too many who have moved in the circle where we have been moving for years strangely enough connect an idea of degradation with the office of teaching children. But is there on the earth a higher or more important use than instructing the mind and training the heart of young immortals? It has been beautifully and truly said, that ‘Earth is the nursery of Heaven.’ The teacher, then, is a worker in God’s own garden. Is it not so, mother?”