were streaming through the door-way where Arthur stood shaking hands with the acquaintances of his childhood.  There was a soothed, calm expression on Beth’s brow, and her eyes met Arthur’s as he touched her hand.  May thought she seemed a trifle subdued that day, especially toward evening.  Beth had a sort of feeling that night that she would have been content to sit there at the church window for all time.  There was a border of white lilies about the altar, a sprinkling of early stars in the evening sky; solemn hush and sacred music within, and the cry of some stray night-bird without.  There were gems of poetry in that sermon, too; little gleanings from nature here and there.  Then she remembered how she had once said Arthur had not an artist-soul.  Was she mistaken?  Was he one of those men who bury their sentiments under the practical duties of every-day life?  Perhaps so.

The next day she and May sat talking on the sofa by the window.

“Don’t you think, May, I should make a mistake if I married a man who had no taste for literature and art?”

“Yes, I do.  I believe in the old German proverb, ’Let like and like mate together.’”

Was that a shadow crossed Beth’s face?

“But, whatever you do, Beth, don’t marry a man who is all moonshine.  A man may be literary in his tastes and yet not be devoted to a literary life.  I think the greatest genius is sometimes silent; but, even when silent, he inspires others to climb the heights that duty forbade him to climb himself.”

“You’ve deep thoughts in your little head, May.”  And Beth bent over, in lover-like fashion, to kiss the little white hand, but May had dropped into one of her light-hearted, baby moods, and playfully withdrew it.

“Don’t go mooning like that, kissing my dirty little hands!  One would think you had been falling in love.”

Beth went for another stroll that evening.  She walked past the dear old house on the hill-top.  The shutters were no longer closed; last summer’s flowers were blooming again by the pathway; strange children stopped their play to look at her as she passed, and there were sounds of mirth and music within.  Yes, that was the old home—­home no longer now!  There was her own old window, the white roses drooping about it in the early dew.

“Oh, papa! papa! look down on your little Beth!” These words were in her eyes as she lifted them to the evening sky, her tears falling silently.  She was following the old path by the road-side, where she used to go for the milk every evening, when a firm step startled her.

“Arthur!  Good evening.  I’m so glad to see you again!”

She looked beautiful for a moment, with the tears hanging from her lashes, and the smile on her face.

“I called to see you at the parsonage, but you were just going up the street, so I thought I might be pardoned for coming too.”

They were silent for a few moments.  It was so like old times to be walking there together.  The early stars shone faintly; but the clouds were still pink in the west; not a leaf stirred, not a breath; no sound save a night-bird calling to its mate in the pine-wood yonder, and the bleat of lambs in the distance.  Presently Arthur broke the silence with sweet, tender words of sorrow for her loss.