old clock on the kitchen shelf.

"He never asked me," she said, simply.

Austen was silent. The answer seemed to recall, with infinite pathos,
Euphrasia's long-lost youth, and he had not thought of youth as a quality
which could ever have pertained to her. She must have been young once,
and fresh, and full of hope for herself; she must have known, long ago,
something of what he now felt, something of the joy and pain, something
of the inexpressible, never ceasing yearning for the fulfilment of a
desire that dwarfed all others. Euphrasia had been denied that
fulfilment. And he--would he, too, be denied it?

Out of Euphrasia's eyes, as she gazed at the mantel-shelf, shone the
light of undying fires within--fires which at a touch could blaze forth
after endless years, transforming the wrinkled face, softening the
sterner lines of character. And suddenly there was a new bond between the
two. So used are the young to the acceptance of the sacrifice of the old
that they lose sight of that sacrifice. But Austen saw now, in a flash,
the years of Euphrasia's self-denial, the years of memories, the years of
regrets for that which might have been.

"Phrasie," he said, laying a hand on hers, which rested on the arm of the
chair, I was only joking, you know."

"I know, I know," Euphrasia answered hastily, and turned and looked into
his face searchingly. Her eyes were undimmed, and the light was still in
them which revealed a soul of which he had had no previous knowledge.

"I know you was, dear. I never told that to a living being except your