limited, it is true, and homelike--full of familiar things. There stand
the kine, knee-deep in grass; there runs the water; and there grows
the corn. Also you can stop if you like. By-and-by it is different.
By-and-by, when the travellers tread the heights of passion, precipices
will yawn and torrents rush, lightnings will fall and storms will blind;
and who can know that they shall attain at last to that far-off peak,
crowned with the glory of a perfect peace which men call Happiness?
There are those who say it never can be reached, and that the halo which
rests upon its slopes is no earthly light, but rather, as it were, a
promise and a beacon--a glow reflected whence we know not, and lying on
this alien earth as the sun's light lies on the dead bosom of the moon.
Some declare, again, that they have climbed its topmost pinnacle
and tasted of the fresh breath of heaven which sweeps around its
heights--ay, and heard the quiring of immortal harps and the swan-like
sigh of angels' wings; and then behold! a mist has fallen upon them, and
they have wandered in it, and when it cleared they were on the mountain
paths once more, and the peak was far away. And a few there are who tell
us that they live there always, listening to the voice of God; but
these are old and worn with journeying--men and women who have outlived
passions and ambitions and the fire heats of love, and who now, girt
about with memories, stand face to face with the sphinx Eternity.

But John Niel was no chicken, nor very likely to fall in love with the
first pretty face he met. He had once, years ago, gone through that
melancholy stage, and there, he thought, was an end of it. Moreover, if
Bessie attracted him, so did Jess in a different way. Before he had
been a week in the house he came to the conclusion that Jess was the
strangest woman he had ever met, and in her own fashion one of the most
attractive. Her very impassiveness added to her charm; for who is there
in this world who is not eager to learn a secret? To him Jess was