Insensibly relieved by speech, his pain gradually merged into quiet
acceptance, if not resignation. "Shall you marry some day, Barbara?" he
asked, at last.

"If the right man comes--otherwise not."

"Much is written of it in the books, and I know you read a great deal,
but some things in the books are not true, and many things that are true
are not written. They say that a man of fifty should not marry a girl of
twenty and expect to be happy. Miriam was fifteen years older than
Constance and at first I thought of her, but when your mother came from
school, with her blue eyes and golden hair and her pretty, laughing
ways, there was but one face in all the world for me.

"We were so happy, Barbara! The first year seemed less than a month, it
passed so quickly. The books will tell you that the first joy dies.
Perhaps it does, but I do not know, because our marriage lasted only
three years. It may be that, after many years, the heart does not beat
faster at the sound of the beloved's step; that the touch of the loving
hand brings no answering clasp.

[Sidenote: Gift of Marriage]

"But the divinest gift of marriage is this--the daily, unconscious
growing of two souls into one. Aspirations and ambitions merge, each
with the other, and love grows fast to love. Unselfishness answers to
unselfishness, tenderness responds to tenderness, and the highest joy of
each is the well-being of the other. The words of Church and State are
only the seal of a predestined compact. Day by day and year by year the
bond becomes closer and dearer, until at last the two are one, and even