that none of the windows had been broken nor the roof; only a new
woods scholar, with little feet and a big hard head and a bunch of
mistletoe in one hand, was standing on the steps, waiting for her
to open the door.

David's college experience had effected the first great change in
him as he passed from youth to manhood; Gabriella had wrought the
second. The former was a fragment of the drama of man's soul with
God; the latter was the drama of his heart with woman.

It had begun the day the former ended--in the gloom of that winter
twilight day, when he had quit the college after his final
interview with the faculty, and had wandered forlorn and dazed into
the happy town, just commencing to celebrate its season of peace on
earth and good will to man. He had found her given up heart and
soul to the work of decorating the church of her faith, the church
of her fathers.

When David met her the second time, it was a few days after his
return home. He was at work in the smoke-house. The meat had been
salted down long enough after the killing: it must be hung, and he
was engaged in hanging it. Several pieces lay piled inside the door
suitably for the hand. He stood with his back to these beside the
meat bench, scraping the saltpetre off a large middling and rubbing
it with red pepper. Suddenly the light of the small doorway failed;
and turning he beheld his mother, and a few feet behind her--David
said that he did not believe in miracles--but a few feet behind his
mother there now stood a divine presence. Believe it or not, there
she was, the miracle! All the bashfulness of his lifetime--it had
often made existence well-nigh insupportable--came crowding into