Before the first stanza was finished a carriage appeared in the rear of the group. From it descended a middle-aged man and a stout woman, and they together helped a young girl to alight. She was clad all in white. For a moment her thin, delicate figure shrank from the cutting wind. Timid, nervous, she glanced an instant at the crowd and the dark icy stream; but it was only a protest of the poor body; the face had the rapt, exultant look of joyous sacrifice. The tall man advanced to meet her, and led her into the midst of the group. For a few moments there was prayer, inaudible at a distance. Then the tall man, taking the girl by the hand, advanced down the slope to the stream. His hat was laid aside, his venerable locks streamed in the breeze, his eyes were turned to heaven; the girl walked as in a vision, without a tremor, her wide-opened eyes fixed upon invisible things. As they moved on, the group behind set up a joyful hymn in a kind of mournful chant, in which the tall man joined with a strident voice. Fitfully the words came on the wind, in an almost heart-breaking wail: “Beyond the smiling and the weeping I shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Beyond the sowing and the reaping, I shall be soon.” They were near the water now, and the tall man's voice sounded out loud and clear: “Lord, tarry not, but come!” They were entering the stream where there was an opening clear of ice; the footing was not very secure, and the tall man ceased singing, but the little band sang on: “Beyond the blooming and the fading I shall be soon.” The girl grew paler and shuddered. The tall man sustained her with an attitude of infinite sympathy, and seemed to speak words of encouragement. They were in the mid-stream; the cold flood surged about their waists. The group sang on: “Beyond the shining and the shading, Beyond the hoping and the dreading, I shall be soon.” The strong, tender arms of the tall man gently lowered the white form under the cruel water; he staggered a moment in the swift stream, recovered himself, raised her, white as death, and the voices of the wailing tune came: “Love, rest, and home Sweet hope! Lord, tarry not, but come!” And the tall man, as he struggled to the shore with his almost insensible burden, could be heard above the other voices and the wind and the rush of the waters: “Lord, tarry not, but come!” The girl was hurried into the carriage, and the group quickly dispersed. “Well, I'll be--” The tender-hearted little wife of the rough man in the crowd who began that sentence did not permit him to finish it. “That'll be a case for a doctor right away,” remarked a well-known practitioner who had been looking on. Margaret and Mr. Lyon walked home in silence. “I can't talk about it,” she said. “It's such a pitiful world.” IV In the evening, at our house, Margaret described the scene in the park.