There was no relighting these old ashes. And yet, in defiance of that avowed impossibility, they seemed now and again to glow. They warmed him and lighted him back to a perception of lost odor and dead color. They stung him into some remembrance of the pain of years ago. And then, again, they were altogether cold and lifeless. He said vaguely in a half whisper that it was a pity; and the phrase rose to his lips a hundred times--oftener than not an utterance purely mechanical, and expressing neither regret for Rachel nor for himself, nor sorrow for their division. When he was not thinking of her or of himself, he murmured that this was how it had come to pass, and did not seem to care or feel at all. When the gloom was deepening in Ezra's ill-lighted chamber, though the light of the summer evening still lingered outside, the house-keeper came in and drew the blinds, and left behind her a single candle, which left the room as dusky as before. Shortly after this Reuben came in, and Ezra, nodding, signed him to a chair. The young man took a seat in silence. “Well, lad,” said his uncle, when to the young man the continued stillness had grown almost ponderous. The seconds had seemed to drop one by one upon him from the audible ticking of the old clock in the next room, each with an increasing weight of embarrassed sympathy. “Well, uncle?” returned Reuben, trying to speak in his ordinary way, and only succeeding in sounding shamefully flippant and unsympathetic to his own ears. “I've a mind to have a talk with you,” said Ezra. “Is the door shut?” Reuben rose to see, and murmuring that it was closed, resumed his seat. He waited a while in expectation that his uncle was about to confide in him. “When beest going to make up your mind to pluck up a courage and speak to Ruth?” the old man asked. “To Ruth, sir?” returned Reuben. The question staggered him a little. “To Ruth,” said Ezra. “I have spoken,” answered Reuben. “We are going to be married.” “That's well,” the old man said, mildly. “But I looked to be told of any such thing happening. Thee and me, lad, are all as is left o' th' old stock i' this part o' the world.” “Don't think I should have kept you ignorant of it,” said Reuben. “I only knew this morning. I have not seen you since till now.” “Well, lad, well,” said Ezra, “I wish thee happy. But I'm sure you know that without need of any word o' mine. I asked because I meant to give out a bit of a warning agen the danger of delay. Theer's not alone the danger of it, but sometimes the cruelty of it. It's hard for a young woman as has been encouraged to set her heart upon a man, to be kept waitin' on the young man's pleasure. You see, lad, they'm tongue-tied. Perhaps”--he offered this supposition with perfect gravity--“perhaps it's the having been tongue-tied afore marriage as makes some on 'em so lively and onruled in speech when marriage has set 'em free.”