“It is very clear to me,” said Rachel Froke, folding up the sheets of the letter, and putting them back into their envelope.  “Shall Desire read this?”

“I think so.  It would not be a real thing, unless she understood.”

So Desire had the letter to read that day when she came home; and then Rachel Froke told her how it was that she must go away for a while; and Desire went round to Miss Euphrasia’s room in the twilight, and gave her back her letter, and talked it all over with her; and they two next day explained the most of it to Hazel.  It was not needful that she should know the very whole about Rachel or the Argenters; only enough was said to make plain the real companionship that was coming, and the mutual help that it might be; enough of the story to make Hazel cry out joyfully,—­“Why, Desire!  Miss Kirkbright!  She’s another!  She belongs!” And then, without such drawback of sadness as the other two had had to feel, she caught them each by a hand, and danced them up and down a little dance before the fire upon the hearth-rug—­singing,—­

“Four of us know the Muffin-man,
Five of us know the Muffin-man,
All of us know the Muffin-man,

    That lives in Drury Lane.”

CHAPTER XIV.

MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL.

It was on the corner of Merle Street and Mavis Place.  The Reverend Hilary Vireo, as I have told you, was the minister.

It might have been called, if anybody had thought of it, “The Chapel of the New Song.”  For it was the very gospel of hope and gladness that Hilary Vireo preached there, and had preached and lived for twenty years, making lives to sing that would have moaned.

“Haven’t you a song in your heart, somewhere?” was his word once, to a man of hard life, who came to him in a trouble, and telling him of it, passed to a spiritual confidence, such as Vireo drew out of people without the asking.  At the end of his story, the man had said that “he supposed it was as good as he ought to expect; he hadn’t any business to look for better, and he must just bear it, for this life.  He hoped there was something afterwards for them that could get to it, but he didn’t know.”

“Aren’t you glad of things, sometimes?” said Mr. Vireo.  “Of a pleasant day, even,—­or a strong, fresh feeling in the morning?  Don’t you touch the edge of the great gladness that is in the world, now and then, in spite of your own little single worries?  Well, that’s what God means; and the worry is the interruption.  He never means that.  There’s a great song forever singing, and we’re all parts and notes of it, if we will just let Him put us in tune.  What we call trouble is only his key, that draws our heart-strings truer, and brings them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch.  Don’t mind the strain; believe in the note, every time his finger touches and sounds it.  If you are glad for one minute in the day, that is his minute; the minute He means, and works for.”