those things into which it is not our right to pry.

This Mary Magdalene believes her lover was the Chosen Son of God, and that
the Father will reclothe the Son in a new garment of flesh and send him
back to his beloved. So she watches and waits, and dresses herself to
receive him, and at night places a lighted lantern in the window to guide
the way.

She watches and waits.

Other women wait for footsteps that will never come, and listen for a
voice that will never be heard. All round the world there is a sisterhood
of such. Some, being wise, lose themselves in loving service to others--in
useful work. But this woman, out in the wilds of New Mexico, hugs her
sorrow to her heart, and feeds her passion by recounting it, and watches
away the leaden hours, crying aloud to all who will listen: "He is not
dead--he is not dead! he will come back to me! He promised it--he will
come back to me! This long, dreary waiting is only a test of my loyalty
and love! I will be patient, for he will come back to me! He will come
back to me!"

This world would be a sorry place if most men conducted their lives on the
Robert Burns plan. Burns was affectionate, tender, generous and kind; but
he was not wise. He never saw the future, nor did he know that life is a
sequence, and that if you do this, it is pretty sure to lead to that. His
loves were largely of the earth.

Excess was a part of his wayward, undisciplined nature; and that constant
tendency to put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains, bound him
at last, hand and foot. His old age could never have been frosty, but