“No more for me the eager day
      Breaks its bright prison-bars;
    The sunshine Thou hast stripped away,
      But bared the eternal stars.

    “Though in the cloud the wild bird sings,
      His song falls not for me,
    Alone while rosy heaven rings,—­
      But, Lord, alone with Thee!”

One well could know, in listening to the liquid melody of those clear tones, that love and sorrow had transfused her life at last to woof and warp of innermost joy that death itself could neither tarnish nor obscure.  In a few moments she came down and joined Ray, where he stood upon the door-stone, with one arm resting over the shoulder of little Jane, and watched with him the antics of a youth who postured before them.  It was some old acquaintance of Ray’s, returned from the war; and as if he would demonstrate how wonderfully martial exercise supples joint and sinew, he was leaping in the air, turning his heel where his toe should be, hanging his foot on his arm and throwing it over his shoulder in a necklace, skipping and prancing on the grass like a veritable saltinbanco.  Ray looked grimly on and inspected the evolutions; then there was long process of question and answer and asseveration, and, when the youth departed, little Jane had announced with authority that Ray should throw away his crutch and stand on two feet of his own again.

“What a gay fellow he is!” said Ray, drawing a breath of relief.  “They’re all alike, dancing on graves.  To be an old Temeraire decked out in signal-flags after thunderous work well done, and settling down, is one thing.  But we,—­to-day, when one would think every woman in the land should wear the sackcloth and ashes of mourning, we break into a splendor of apparel that defies the butterflies and boughs of the dying year.”

“Two striking examples before you,” said little Jane, with a laugh, as she looked at her old print and at Vivia’s gray gown.

“I wasn’t thinking of you.  I saw the ladies in the village yesterday,—­they were pied and parded.”

“Children,” said Mrs. Vennard from within, “I’ve taken up the coffee now.  I sha’n’t wait a minute longer.  Vivia, I’ll beat an egg into yours.”

But the children had wandered down to the lake-shore, oblivious of her cry, and were standing on the rock watching their images glassed below and ever freshly shattered with rippling undulations.  A wherry chained beside them Vivia rocked lightly with her foot.

“You and little Jane will set me down by-and-by?” she asked. “’T will be so much pleasanter than the coach.”

“And, Vivia dear, you will go, then?” exclaimed little Jane, with tearful eyes.  “You will certainly go?”

“Yes,” said Vivia, looking out and far away, “I shall go to do that”—­

“Which no one can ever do for you,” said Ray, with a shudder.

“Which some woman will praise Heaven for.”

“God bless you, Vivia!” cried little Jane.