"Mother never had any real good picture," said Eben meditatively. "I dunno 's she ever set for a photograph. She had an ambrotype taken when she was young, with kinder full sleeves an' her hair brought down over her ears. No, mother never had a picture that was any comfort to me." Then Lydia dared her first approach. "Ain't you got any photographs here with you, any of your other folks? I'd like to know how they look." He shook his head. "No. They're all to home. You'll find 'em in the album on the centre-table. Gee! I hope the house won't be all full o' dust. I never thought, when I set out, I should bring the quality back with me." But she could not answer by a lifted eyelash the veiled fondness of his tone. All his emotion had this way of taking little by-paths, as if he skirted courtship without often finding the courage to enter boldly in. It was delightful to her, but at this moment she could not even listen. She was too busy with her own familiar quest. Now she spoke timidly, yet with a hidden purpose. "I think pictures of folks are a good deal of a comfort, don't you--after death?" Eben made no answer for a moment. He still gazed reflectively outward, but whether it was into the future or his hidden past she could not tell. "It's queer about dyin'," he said at last. She answered him tumultuously:-- "What is?" "Why--" then he paused, as if to set his thought in order. "I can't tell jest what I mean. Only folks can be here to-day an' there to-morrer. An' they can be all of a bloom of health, or handsome as a pictur'--an' lo ye! they're changed!" A cold certainty settled upon her heart. The first wife had, then, been handsome. Lydia did not know whether acquired knowledge was a boon or not. Eben had risen, and was standing with his hands in his pockets, still looking into space. It seemed to her that he was miles away. "An' I dunno which is the worst," he was saying, "to have 'em come down with a long sickness, or drop off sudden. I do, too. It's worse to see 'em suffer. But when they give right up afore your face an' eyes--" He stopped, and Lydia thought he shuddered. Again she knew. The first wife had died suddenly, and the memory of the shock was too keen upon him to admit of speech. But he shook off reflection as if it had been the dust of the hour. Now he turned to her, and the sweet recognition of his glance was warming her anew. "Don't you go an' play me any such trick," he said, with the whimsical creases deepening in his cheeks. Yet she thought his eyes were wet. "What?" "Dyin'." A new tenderness was born in her at the moment, seeing what he had endured. "No," she wanted to say, "I hope you won't have to go through that twice." But she only shook her head brightly at him. "Come," said she, "it's time to harness up."