The Autumn clouds are flying,
Homeless over me,
The homeless birds are crying,
In the naked tree.
--_George Macdonald_

It was a very pleasant, little _tableau_ that followed, those three
happy souls, gathered around a well-spread table laughing and chatting
merrily. Honor no longer felt any timidity or reserve before Mr. Rayne,
his advanced years commanded a confidence and trust that she would have
otherwise perhaps been slow to give, and the unlimited generosity he
betrayed in even anticipating her every wish, gave her no opportunity to
feel that she was under the patronage of a perfect stranger. He had
shown himself as a kind, indulgent father from the first, and was as
solicitous about her as though she had been his very own, or that he had
been accustomed to administer to the wants and wishes of a young
unripened girl all his life. But this is no mystery to the interpreter
of the human heart. Henry Rayne could hardly act otherwise to any lone
helpless creature without sacrificing the impulses of his own generous,
noble soul, and trampling upon the desire that continually influenced
him towards being the direct cause of happiness and comfort to others.
Taking away any supernatural motive that might lead him to such generous
action, yet leaves the deed a worthy one, and the heart a Christian one,
for, to gratify others was to gratify himself, and this alone is
characteristic of a great soul. As the orphan child of a friend of his
youth, I doubt not that Henry Rayne would protect her at his life's
peril. We all know what a firm knot it is that binds the sympathetic
souls of rollicking college "chums" which, tied once, is tied forever.
It has always been so; it is one of those strictly conservative
principles that grows with mankind in every generation, and is yet never