She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and deep matters.  Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie’s father came up and joined her.  Since his introduction to Helen at the distinguished tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to sit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most accidental way in the world met her on several occasions:  once after church, when she happened to be caught in a slight shower and he insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her way home;—­once at a small party at one of the mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady of the house had a wonderful knack of bringing people together who liked to see each other;—­perhaps at other times and places; but of this there is no certain evidence.

They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had taken.  But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to saying much about her physical condition or her peculiarities,—­a wish to feel and speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, as if there were something about Elsie which he could not bear to dwell upon.  She thought she saw through all this, and she could interpret it all charitably.  There were circumstances about his daughter which recalled the great sorrow of his life; it was not strange that this perpetual reminder should in some degree have modified his feelings as a father.  But what a life he must have been leading for so many years, with this perpetual source of distress which he could not name!  Helen knew well enough, now, the meaning of the sadness which had left such traces in his features and tones, and it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards him.

So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the lines of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;—­for this is one of the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than this, it must be that there was box growing on it.  So they walked, finding their way softly to each other’s sorrows and sympathies, each meeting some counterpart to the other’s experience of life, and startled to see how the different, yet parallel, lessons they had been taught by suffering had led them step by step to the same serene acquiescence in the orderings of that Supreme Wisdom which they both devoutly recognized.

Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the garden-alleys.  She watched them as her grandfather the savage watched the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe was lurking about his mountain.

“There’ll be a weddin’ in the ol’ house,” she said, “before there’s roses on them bushes ag’in.  But it won’ be my poor Elsie’s weddin’, ‘n’ Ol’ Sophy won’ be there.”