And Life and Love dared not look into each other's eyes, dared not say,
"What ails our darling?" Each heart whispered to itself, "It is nothing,
it is nothing, tomorrow it will laugh out clear." But tomorrow and
tomorrow came. They journeyed on, and the child played beside them, but
heavily, more heavily.

One day Life and Love lay down to sleep; and when they awoke, it was gone:
only, near them, on the grass, sat a little stranger, with wide-open eyes,
very soft and sad. Neither noticed it; but they walked apart, weeping
bitterly, "Oh, our Joy! our lost Joy! shall we see you no more for ever?"

The little soft and sad-eyed stranger slipped a hand into one hand of each,
and drew them closer, and Life and Love walked on with it between them.
And when Life looked down in anguish, she saw her tears reflected in its
soft eyes. And when Love, mad with pain, cried out, "I am weary, I am
weary! I can journey no further. The light is all behind, the dark is all
before," a little rosy finger pointed where the sunlight lay upon the hill-
sides. Always its large eyes were sad and thoughtful: always the little
brave mouth was smiling quietly.

When on the sharp stones Life cut her feet, he wiped the blood upon his
garments, and kissed the wounded feet with his little lips. When in the
desert Love lay down faint (for Love itself grows faint), he ran over the
hot sand with his little naked feet, and even there in the desert found
water in the holes in the rocks to moisten Love's lips with. He was no
burden--he never weighted them; he only helped them forward on their
journey.

When they came to the dark ravine where the icicles hang from the rocks--
for Love and Life must pass through strange drear places--there, where all