“No, my son,” said the old man, smiling and almost weeping, “that is not the right answer.  I like your whole-hearted love.  But it is far easier to say ‘for ever and ever,’ standing as you think you do now on the brink of eternity, than to say ‘till death do us part,’ looking down a long and weary road of toil and sickness and poverty and change and little vexations.  You do not only take this woman, young and blooming, but old and sick and withered and wearied, perhaps.  Do you take her for any lot?”

“For any lot,” said August solemnly and humbly.

And Julia, on her part, could only bow her head in reply to the questions, for the tears chased one another down her cheeks.  And then came the benediction.  The inspired old man, full of hearty sympathy, stretched his trembling hands with apostolic solemnity over the heads of the two, and said slowly, with solemn pauses, as the words welled up out of his soul:  “The peace of God—­that passeth all understanding” (here his voice melted with emotion)—­“keep your hearts—­and minds—­in the knowledge and love of God.—­And now, may grace—­mercy—­and peace from God—­the Father—­and our Lord Jesus Christ—­be with you—­evermore—­Amen!” And to the imagination of Julia the Spirit of God descended like a dove into her heart, and the great mystery of wifely love and the other greater mystery of love to God seemed to flow together in her soul.  And the quieter spirit of August was suffused with a great peace.

They soon left the castle to return to the mount of ascension, but they walked slowly, and at first silently, over the intervening hill, which gave them a view of the Ohio River, sleeping in its indescribable beauty and stillness in the moonlight.

Presently they heard the melodious voice of the old presiding elder, riding up the road a little way off, singing the hopeful hymns in which he so much delighted.  The rich and earnest voice made the woods ring with one verse of

     “Oh! how happy are they
       Who the Saviour obey,
     And have laid up their treasure above I
       Tongue can never express
       The sweet comfort and peace
     Of a soul in its earliest love.”

And then he broke into Watts’s

     “When I can read my title clear
       To mansions in the skies,
     I’ll bid farewell to every fear
       And wipe my weeping eyes!”

There seemed to be some accord between the singing of the brave old man and the peacefulness of the landscape.  Soon he had reached the last stanza, and in tones of subdued but ecstatic triumph he sang: 

     “There I shall bathe my weary soul
       In seas of heavenly rest,
     And not a wave of trouble roll
       Across my peaceful breast.”

And with these words he passed round the hill and out of the hearing of the young people.

“August,” said Julia slowly, as if afraid to break a silence so blessed, “August, it seems to me that the sky and the river and the hazy hills and my own soul are all alike, just as full of happiness and peace as they can be.”