You've helped me ever so much." Another gift was a moss basket filled with arbutus blossoms.

Hid away in the leaves was a tiny paper, on which were written some graceful verses, evidently by a not unpractised hand.

The signature was in initials unknown to Mercy; but she hazarded a guess as to the authorship, and sent the following verses in reply:-- TO E.B.
At night, the stream came to the sea.
"Long leagues," it cried, "this drop I bring, O beauteous, boundless sea! What is the meagre, paltry thing In thine abundance unto thee?
No ripple, in thy smallest wave, of me Will know! No thirst its suffering Shall better slake for my surrendering My life! O sea, in vain My leagues of toil and pain!" At night, wayfarers reached the sea.
"Long weary leagues we came," they cried, "O beauteous, boundless sea! The swelling waves of thy swift tide Break on the shores where souls are free: Through lonely wildernesses, unto thee One tiny stream has been our guide, And in the desert we had died, If its oases sweet Had not refreshed our feet." O tiny stream, lost in the sea, Close symbol of a lifetime's speech! O beauteous, boundless sea, Close fitting symbol of the reach, Of measureless Eternity! Be glad, O stream, O sea, blest equally! And thou whose words have helped to teach Me this,--my unknown friend,--for each Kind thought, warm thanks.
Only the stream can know How at such words the long leagues lighter grow.
All these new interests and occupations, while they did not in the least weaken her loyalty to Stephen, filled her thoughts healthfully and absorbingly, and left her no room for any such passionate longing and brooding as Stephen poured out to her in his letters.

He looked in vain for any response to these expressions.

Sometimes, unable to bear the omission any longer, he would ask her pathetically why she did not say that she longed to see him.