And no one hears his soundless tread,
And no one sees his veiled head,
Or silent hand, put forth so sure,_

_"To grasp and snatch from mortal sight;
Or else benignly turn away,
And let us live our little day,
And tremble back into the light:_

_"But though thus awful to our eyes,
He is an angel in disguise."_




Every human being, and certainly every woman, has, among the
various ideals of happiness, good to make, if never to enjoy, one special
ideal---that great necessity of every tender heart---Home.

Christian had made hers, built her castle in Spain, and furnished and
adorned it from basement to battlement, even when she was a girl of
fourteen. Sitting night after night alone, listening for the father's
footstep, and then trembling when she heard it, or hidden away up in
her own bedroom, her sole refuge from the orgies that took place
below, where the sound of music, exquisite music, went up like the cry
of an angel imprisoned in a den of brutes, the girl had imagined it all.
And through every vicissitude, hidden closer for its utter contrast to all
the associations and experience of her daily life, Christian Oakley had
kept in her heart its innocent, womanly ideal of home.