The month passed. When the happy young creatures came, the very beauty of their faces and forms about the house gave warmth and color. Roy was still limping a little and his lung needed care, but he was as handsome as a young fellow could be, and as proud and bright in his new happiness as if the earth were his. "Is she not beautiful?" he would ask twenty-times a day, holding the laughing young wife at arm's length. "_Isn't_ she beautiful, father?" and Griffith would pretend to turn critical eyes upon her and tease the son with an assumption that it was necessary to look for a beauty which was both rare and graciously, brilliantly endowed. "Well, let me see! L-e-t--me s-e-e! Turn around, daughter--No, not so far--M-mm. Well--it--seems--to--me--she is r-a-t-h-e-r fair!" and Griffith's eyes would twinkle with pleasure when Emma tweaked his ears or drowned his pretense in a dash of music. The old piano gave place to a new one, and the home was once more filled with laughter and music and a happiness that not even the shadow cast by the thought of the two absent ones could make dark enough to veil the spirits of the two who had come. With the others it had also its infection. So true is it that after long and terrible strains we hail partial relief with such peans of joy that the shadows that remain seem only to temper the light that has burst upon our long darkened vision and to render us only the better able to bear the relief. Griffith sang the old hymns daily now, and even essayed to add his uncertain voice to the gay music that Emma and Roy flung forth. "And the nights shall be filled with music, And the thoughts that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away." Emma's voice rang out clear and sweet, and it seemed to Katherine that, after all, it was very delightful to have a new daughter like this one, and if Roy _must_ marry, why---- Good news continued to come from the front. Howard and Beverly were well and unhurt. In their different ways they wrote cheerful and cheering letters. Emma grew more radiant every day as she watched the returning color come to Roy's cheeks, and one day Griffith took her by both arms as she was flashing past him. He held her at arm's length and laughed. "Trying to see if I'm pretty, father?" she said saucily, lifting her mouth for a kiss. "Pretty! pretty! Why, daughter of Babylon, the lilies of the field are not half so lovely--and Solomon, in all his glory--" He stepped back and folded his arms. Emma flung both little hands up to his cheeks in glee. "Kiss me! oh, you dear old father! Solomon in all his glory never knew you--didn't have you for a father--and so that is where I have got the best of Solomon! Poor old Solomon, I wouldn't trade with him!" She ran laughing down the hall, and Katherine smiled up at her husband.