Evadne caught the child in her arms.

“You little darling!”

“Yes, me is,” said the child, resting contentedly within Evadne’s embrace, as if, with the mysterious telepathy of childhood, she recognized a spiritual affinity which she was bound to help.  “Me’s very nice.  Don says so.”

“And who is Don?” asked Evadne.

“Don’s my bootiful man.  Me’s doin’ to marry Don when me gets big.  Oh, dere he is!” and breaking from Evadne, she rolled herself between the bars of the gate and ran at the top of her speed towards John Randolph, who just then appeared around a bend in the road, one arm thrown lightly over the neck of the horse he had been training.

“Halloo, Nansie!” Evadne heard his cheery greeting, saw him stoop and lift the child on to the horse’s back, and was so interested in the pretty scene that she forgot she was a stranger.  When she came to herself with a start the little cavalcade had reached the gate and John Randolph stood before her with his hat in his hand.

Evadne bowed.  “It is so beautiful!” she said.  “I have been waiting for my uncle and lost myself among the harmonies of Nature.”

John Randolph’s eyes lightened.  “It is God’s world,” he answered with a sweet reverence.

Evadne looked full into the shining face.  “Do you know Jesus Christ?” she asked impulsively.

The face softened into a great tenderness.  “He is my King.”

“And do you love him?”

“With all there is of me.”

A servant came just then to say the Judge was waiting.

“I will come at once,” Evadne said courteously.  Then she turned once more to John.  “And what do you think of life?” she cried softly.

“Life!” he said, and there was a strange, exultant ring in his voice.  “Life is a beautiful possibility.”

There was no time for more, but in the spirit realm of kinship no multitude of words is needed.  Only a few moments had passed, yet in that little space two souls had met.  What did it matter if the devious turnings of life should lead them far apart, or the barring gate of circumstance forever separate them?  They had found each other!

“Pitty lady!—­Nan loves oo, dear,” and the child whom John held seated on the broad top rail of the gate, held up her rosy lips for a kiss.

Instinctively Evadne held out her hand to John.  Spiritual ethics laugh at the conventionalities of time.  “Good-bye,” she said, “and thank you.”

She looked back once to wave her hand to little Nan.  John was standing as she had left him, one arm encircling the child who nestled close to him, while over his right shoulder the horse had thrust his handsome head.  Always afterward she saw him so.  It was a parable of what God had meant man to be.

* * * * *