"While I am keeper of the threshold no one shall enter that she would bar the door against. I will live there myself, if it be necessary. I have the power, or

They watched him ride slowly away, a plain-looking, oldish man, small, stout, and commonplace, but living amidst the great mysteries of life, and nourishing and cherishing his soul on them. Dick unfastened his horses and prepared for their homeward drive, and while he did so Francesca walked alone to the newmade grave, and vowed a vow to the woman whose clay image it kept.

And for a long while she was very silent, and Dick let her think. His own mind was busy. He was thousands of miles away, when he heard a low voice singing the saddest little wail of minor music. It was at his side. It was Francesca. He came sharply and sorrowfully back to reality, and the mournful notes of the dirge fitted his restless, solemnly wondering mood so well, he could not choose but listen to them and anon catch their meaning, and sing them also:

45

CHAPTER XIV.

THEY WHO LOVE SHOW THEIR LOVE."

"Every time

Serves for the matter that is then born in 't."

Best apprehender of our joys, which hast
So long a reach, and yet canst hold so fast."

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie

Which we ascribe to heaven."

Strong reasons make strong actions.-Shakespeare.

THE

night was dark and rainy, and the ride back to

Dick

Atherton very melancholy; but how pleasant was the thought of home and all its love and comfort! From afar the lighted windows of the Court showed them a welcome; and the little surprise of their earlier return added a kindlier tone to their reception. thought he had never before seen Loida look so charming; certainly she had never before met him with such a delightful show of her affection. For if Dick had one fault with his beautiful wife, it was that she restrained too much all show of the really deep love she bore him. But this night she rose up blushing with delight at his entrance. She took his hands; she let her eyes seek from his the embrace he was proud and happy to give. Part of this sweet effusion was doubtless due to the un

expected joy of his return that night; but mostly it was due to some words Clara had let fall as they sat together that afternoon.

The squire had just left them for his usual tramp, and perhaps there was-or perhaps Clara thought there was -the faintest shadow of wonder or contempt on Loida's face at his boyish delight in the affectionate compliments and charges of his wife. "He was to be sure and take care of himself—not to get his feet wet-not to ride horses nobody else would mount-if he took his gun, not to try and hop through a hedge as if he thought himself a bird"—and so on indefinitely. And after all, a quick following of him to the open door for a final kiss, though Clara pretended that "she had forgotten to look whether he had his gaiters on or not."

All this demonstrativeness of love was foreign to Loida's ideas and experience, rather than it was aside from her real disposition. Perhaps if Clara had analyzed the shadow on her companion's face, she would have found more of longing than of wonder or contempt in it. However, it was Clara's way always to face what annoyed her, and she said reflectively as she resumed her sewing:

"Men do so love to be petted; they are as hungry for a few sweet words as a baby for its mother's breast. And when it is so easy to make them happy, do you not think, Loida, that we ought to do so?"

"I suppose we ought."

"Rashleigh went away with such a glow in his heart, so elated, my dear, that nothing on earth could hurt him. He would ride like a spirit or swim like a fish, or do any mortal thing as an immortal ought to do it.

My dear, if you can kindle such a glow in a man's heart, you may send him into the Stock Exchange to make a fortune out of nothing, or do any other impossibility. I dare say if you had written letters to Dick full of red-hot adjectives, he would have been home, with his pockets full, in five years. Men are made that way, my dear."

She said a great deal more on the same subject, touching with a delicate, clever innuendo the fact that Dick was a man specially needing love's loving-kindness; and as she talked, the voices of both grew more earnest, and the one woman was brave enough to say and the other woman was brave enough to hear words that touched two lives with a fresh glory even to the grave. And the first result, as far as Dick was concerned, was that unusual welcome home-the blush, the kiss, the eager inquiry as to his desires, the ready service love gives so gracefully. And Clara, with a pretty tact, made her anxiety about Francesca a screen for Loida's unprecedented show of tenderness. She insisted on twenty practical inquiries into damp and chill and hunger and thirst, and finally left the girl cuddled close to her father's side, to give special orders about supper for the travelers.

Then the squire said:

'Thou art home a deal sooner than we thought for. Has something gone wrong?"

"I hope not; I think not, father.

Mrs. Leigh is

dead. We were just in time to join the funeral. Squire Idle was there, but he seemed full of thought, and he did not see me."

"God give her soul eternal rest! She was a woman

full of whimsies and troubles.

A very strange woman.

A very sorrowful woman, I think."

"In this world, father, who are quite happy?" "Sometimes some of us fancy we are happy; eh,

Dick?"

Dick was sitting quiet, with a smile on his handsome mouth. At that hour Dick at least was happy. But when the squire explained his question, a quick solemnity absorbed the dreamy light of joy, and he answered slowly :

"As far as I have seen, every soul has trouble of some kind."

I

"And for every one, Dick, there is also death." "My dear Francesca, I do not call death sorrow. have seen death watched for, longed for, and prayed for. This little earth is but a lodge in the universe, and we are but tenants at will of our place in it; but―

"The heavens are measureless; the dead are free!
With their brief day on earth, their sorrows cease.
O Grave, this is thy victory!

O Death, this is thy peace!'

I heard a man dying, alone at the bottom of a deep mine, say those words. He said them in a rapture. He was a young Englishman whom I tried to befriend. I never saw a smile on his face until the hour of his death. But if there be a true joy upon earth it springs from love-from love's labor or from love's sacrifice, or love's pleasure shared or love's sorrow shared. All other joys are but the shadows of joy. They fly away and are not."

At this moment there was a simultaneous opening of