Four Gates by Amy Le Feuvre

"What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it has sown And garner up its fruit of tears.

"The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave into the sea. Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, Can keep my own away from me. " JOHN BURROUGHS.

HONOR had not been with Pauline very long before Amabel came over to see them with her baby. She had arrived from India with an ayah, who was the cause of much awe and interest to the villagers. Amabel herself looked white and frail, but was as happy and lighthearted as ever.

Of course, as mothers, she and Honor compared notes about their babies, and Pauline listened to them with much amusement.

"I do love India so," said Amabel, "but I am afraid it does not love me. I seem to get so much fever. You see, I have some shadows, Honor; I know you think I have none."

"Oh, I don't say that," said Honor; "the separation from your husband must be a big one."

"Yes; and he feels it so much that he wants to get an exchange, but I won't have that. I am a soldier's wife, and don't want him or myself to shirk the hardships that come to us. I don't want him ever to be able to say, 'I could have got my promotion quicker if I had been an unmarried man."

"I quite agree," said Pauline, with kindling eyes.

"So, you see," went on Amabel in her cheerful voice, "I must be separated from him for a little. When I get quite strong again, I shall go back to him. And meanwhile, baby and ayah and I are turning our house topsy-turvy, but mother and father say they enjoy it, and I am sure I do."

She chatted away, telling them of her first experiences of native servants, and making them laugh at her blunders.

When she had left them, Honor said:

"It isn't only Amabel's circumstances that make her so sunny; it is her nature. She will go through life taking everything the same way."

"Yes, I think she will. Even big sorrows that may come to her will fall upon her softly. She will see the Love behind them."

"She will have no big sorrows-she travels south."

"Oh, well," said Pauline, laughing, "that is only a fancy of ours. And, remember, storms come from every quarter."

It was only the next morning that Pauline came to breakfast and found Honor, who had come down before her, reading a foreign letter, with a stunned, despairing face.

To herself Pauline thought, "That wretched husband again!"

Then she asked if she had had good news. Honor sat down at the table, and, putting her face down into her hands, began to cry.

"What is the matter, dear? Is your husband not well?"

"Oh, I can't believe it! It's the most awful news! Alick has had the most dreadful accident. I can't understand particulars. He was jammed between some logs near a rapid; he was in a canoe, and it was caught between them and crushed to pieces. That's what this man says-it isn't Alick himself. And they've had to amputate one of his legs above the knee. He'll be a cripple for life; he will never be able to ride. And this man says one of his arms is also injured."