I looked in vain from my pulpit on the following Sabbath for Tom Beadle and Blade-o'-Grass, but they were not in church. I had introduced into my discourse on that day certain words applicable to the beauty and holiness of the marriage tie--words which I had designed especially for those two humblest members of my congregation, and which I had hoped they would have understood and appreciated. It pained me not to see them, and I was sure that some special circumstance had prevented Blade-o'-Grass at least from attending. I had promised to take a cup of tea with Ruth and her husband after the evening service, and if anything could have made me forget for the time the sorrow which oppressed me, it would have been the peaceful happiness which pervaded their bright and modest home. But the image of Blade-o'-Grass was too strongly fixed in my mind to be forgotten, and in the course of the evening my fancy placed that image by the side of Ruth, as the latter, with all a mother's love in her face, sat rocking the cradle with her foot. It was a terrible contrast, and I strove to banish the fancy; but it refused to leave my mind's eye. Let me, I thought, strive at all events to give it a more pleasing colouring. Ruth was dressed in a brown-stuff gown, and she had a piece of pink ribbon round her neck; she wore dainty white collar and cuffs, and her hair was done up in a simple knot. Merely to look at her as she sat rocking the cradle in which her baby was sleeping created that Home feeling to which all the humanising influences of life are due. In my fancy now I gave Blade-o'-Grass such a dress and such cuffs and collar; I placed the piece of ribbon round her neck, and arranged her hair in similar fashion; and then I placed her by the side of Ruth. It was wonderful; they were of the same height, and the colour of their hair and eyes was the same. But the look of peaceful happiness which dwelt in the face of Ruth was wanting in the face of Blade-o'-Grass. I gave the poor girl this; I banished the anxiety and sorrow from her face, and the likeness was perfect. As I gazed upon the picture, half-real, half-ideal, the sound of Ruth singing softly to her baby stole upon my ear, and the little tricks and turns of the voice which Nature varies in her myriad children with such marvellous skill as to make each distinctive in itself, or assimilative only where ties of blood exist, brought to me the voice of Blade-o'-Grass speaking to _her_ child. I started to my feet to dispel the illusion, and bade Ruth and Charley good-night, for fear I might be tempted to disturb their happiness by even a mention of my thought.