Oh, dim, dim autumn days of sobbing rain
When on the fields the ripened hemp is spread
And woods are brown.
No land, no land like this for mortal pain
When Love stands weeping by the sweet, sweet bed
For Love cut down.

Ah, dark, unfathomably dark, white winter days
When falls the sun from out the crystal deep
On muffled farms.
No land, no land like this for God's sad ways
When near the tented fields Love's Soldier lies asleep
With empty arms.

The verses were too sorrowful for this day, with its new, half-
awakened happiness. Had Gabriella been some strong-minded,
uncompromising New England woman, she might have ended her
association with David the night before--taking her place
triumphantly beside an Accusing Judge. Or she might all the more
fiercely have set on him an acrid conscience, and begun battling
with him through the evidences of Christianity, that she might save
his soul. But this was a Southern girl of strong, warm, deep
nature, who felt David's life in its simple entirety, and had no
thought of rejecting the whole on account of some peculiarity in
one of its parts; the white flock was more to her than one dark
member. Inexpressibly dear and sacred as was her own church, her
own faith, she had never been taught to estimate a man primarily
with reference to his. What was his family, how he stood in his
profession, his honorable character, his manners, his manhood--