sea that way."

"It's looking in at the window all day as I go about the house," she
answered, "and all night too when I'm asleep; and if I hadn't learned to
think of it that way, it would have driven me mad, I du believe. I was
forced to think that way about it, or not think at all. And that wouldn't
be easy, with the sound of it in your ears the last thing at night and the
first thing in the morning."

"The truth of things is indeed the only refuge from the look of things," I
replied. "But now I want the key of the church, if you will trust me with
it, for I have something to do there this morning; and the key of the tower
as well, if you please."

With her old smile, ripened only by age, she reached the ponderous keys
from the nail where they hung, and gave them into my hand. I left her in
the shadow of her dwelling, and stepped forth into the sunlight. The first
thing I observed was the blacksmith waiting for me at the church door.

Now that I saw him in the full light of day, and now that he wore his
morning face upon which the blackness of labour had not yet gathered, I
could see more plainly how far he was from well. There was a flush on his
thin cheek by which the less used exercise of walking revealed his inward
weakness, and the light in his eyes had something of the far-country in
them--"the light that never was on sea or shore." But his speech was
cheerful, for he had been walking in the light of this world, and that had
done something to make the light within him shine a little more freely.

"How do you find yourself to-day?" I asked.