"You said once that I reminded you--of her: is that the reason you--Am I
consoling you?"

"Good God! I don't want consolation! _That_ thing never existed; but here
is the reality; I cannot part with it. I wish you had as little as I have,
outside of this room where we two stand together!"

"I don't know that I have anything," she said under her breath.

"Then," said he, taking her in his arms, "I don't see but that we are ready
to enter the kingdom of heaven. It seems very near to me."

They are still in exile: they have joined the band of lotus-eaters who
inhabit that region of the West which is pervaded by a subtle breath from
the Orient, blowing across the seas between. Mrs. Arnold has not yet made
that first visit East which is said by her Californian friends to be so
disillusioning, and the old home still hovers, like a beautiful mirage, on
the receding horizon.




FRIEND BARTON'S "CONCERN."


It had been "borne in" upon him, more or less, during the long winter;
it had not relaxed when the frosts unlocked their hold and the streams
were set free from their long winter's silence, among the hills. He grew
restless and abstracted under "the turnings of the Lord's hand upon him,"
and his speech unconsciously shaped itself into the Biblical cadences which