not think that any one else knew of it. Who told you?"

"Excuse me from answering, if you please," I said, unwilling to excite
her more, for I knew that the fever was rising rapidly.

"Who knows of this besides you? You don't mind telling me that much?"

"No one knows it, I think; no person told me, and I have told no one.
You seem to have more fever; can you not sleep?"

"Not with all this equinoctial storm raging, and the tide you told me of
coming up with the wind."

She looked decidedly worse. Mr. Axtell let her have her own way. I
thought it wise to follow his leading, and I asked,--

"What tide do you mean? You cannot hear the sea, and it isn't time for
the equinoctial gale."

This question seemed to have quieted Miss Axtell beyond thought of
reply. She did not speak again until the Sabbath-day had begun. Then, at
the very point where she had ceased, she recommenced.

"It is a pity to let the sea in on the fertile fields of your young
life," she said; "but this tide,--it is not that that is now flowing in
on the far-away beach of Redcliff. It is the tide of emotion, that _some
one day_ in life begins to rise in the human heart,--and, oh, what a
strange, wondrous thing it is! There are Bay-of-Fundy tides, and the
uniform tides, and the tideless waters that rest around Pacific Isles;
and no mortal knoweth the cause of their rise or fall. So in human