And they put their own disappointment out of sight, these kindly German folk, and tried to make her think they cared as little as if they were used to driving every day.

“Did you notice, Gretchen,” said Hans, after Evadne had left them, “how sweet our Fraulein was this afternoon?  But her eyes looked as if she had been crying.  Do you suppose she had?”

“I think, Hans,” said Gretchen slowly, “our Fraulein is learning to dwell where God wipes all the tears away.”

“Are your eyes no better, Frau Himmel?” Evadne was saying as she shook hands with another friend who was patiently learning the bitter truth that she would never be able to see her beloved Fatherland again.  “Are the doctors quite sure that nothing can be done?”

“Quite sure, Fraulein Hildreth,” answered the woman with a smile, “but there is one glorious hope they can’t take from me.”

“A hope, Frau Himmel, when you are blind!  What can it be?”

“This, dear Fraulein,” and the look on the patient face was beautiful to see. “’Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.’”

And Evadne, walking homeward, repeated the words which she had read that morning with but a dim perception of their meaning.  ’If limitation is power that shall be, if calamities, opposition and weights are wings and means—­we are reconciled.’

CHAPTER XXIII.

“Uncle Lawrence, with your permission, I am going to study to be a nurse.”

Judge Hildreth started.  So light had been the footsteps and so deeply had he been absorbed in thought, he had not heard his niece enter the library and cross the room until she stood before his desk.  Very fair was the picture which his eyes rested upon.  What made his brows contract as if something hurt him in the sight?

Evadne Hildreth was in all the sweetness of her young womanhood.  She was not beautiful, not even pretty, Isabelle said, but there was a strange fascination about her earnest face, and the wonderful grey eyes possessed a charm that was all their own.  She had graduated with honors.  Now she stood upon the threshold of the unknown, holding her life in her hands.

Louis was traveling in Europe.  Isabelle and Marion were at a fashionable French Conservatory, for the perfecting of their Parisian accent.  Evadne was alone.  She had chosen to have it so.  She wanted to follow up a special course in physiology which was her favorite study.

“A nurse, Evadne!  My dear, you are beside yourself.  ’Much learning hath made you mad.’”

“’I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and soberness.’  I feel called to do this thing.”

“Who has called you, pray?  We do not deal in supernaturalisms in this prosaic century.”

The lovely eyes glowed.  “Jesus Christ.”  What an exultant ring there was in her voice, and how tenderly she lingered over the name!