It seemed a pity that Myron Sharpe should miss that, so I called him in from the porch where he sat reading Stuart Mill on Liberty.

If you form your own opinion of a man who might spend a livelong morning,—­an October morning, quivering with color, alive with light, sweet with the breath of dropping pines, soft with the caress of a wind that had filtered through miles of sunshine,—­and that the morning of the day before his wedding,—­reading Stuart Mill on Liberty,—­I cannot help it.

Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us,—­met her lover’s eyes, stood a moment with lifted lashes and bright cheeks,—­crept with a quick, impulsive movement into her mother’s arms, kissed her, and floated away up the stairs.

“It’s a perfect fit,” said Mrs. Bird; coming out with one corner of a very dingy handkerchief—­somebody had just used it to dust the Parian vases—­at her eyes.

And though, to be sure, it was none of my business, I caught myself saying, under my breath,—­

“It’s a fit for life; for a life, Dr. Sharpe.”

Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely.  He was very much in love with the little pink-and-white cloud that had just fluttered up the stairs.  If it had been drifting to him for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have felt no doubt of the “fit.”

Nor, I am sure, would Harrie.  She stole out to him that evening after the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net behind her ears,—­Harrie’s ears were very small, and shaded off in the colors of a pale apple-blossom,—­up-turning her flushed and weary face.

“Put away the book, please, Myron.”

Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious Affections), and looked for a moment without speaking at the up-turned face.

Dr. Sharpe had spasms of distrusting himself amazingly; perhaps most men have,—­and ought to.  His face grew grave just then.  That little girl’s clear eyes shone upon him like the lights upon an altar.  In very unworthiness of soul he would have put the shoes from off his feet.  The ground on which he trod was holy.

When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper:—­

“Harrie, are you afraid of me?  I know I am not very good.”

And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the scarlet leaves upon her hair, said softly, “How could I be afraid of you?  It is I who am not good.”

Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affections that evening.  All the time that the skies were fading, we saw them wandering in and out among the apple-trees,—­she with those shining eyes, and her hand in his.  And when to-morrow had come and gone, and in the dying light they drove away, and Miss Dallas threw old Grandmother Bird’s little satin boot after the carriage, the last we saw of her was that her hand was clasped in his, and that her eyes were shining.