"You see, Cousin Nelly," continued Ned, getting up and pacing the long old-fashioned parlor with quick, nervous strides, "it's all sheer nonsense to talk about these doors in every human heart. It sounds very pretty and pathetic in a story, I'll admit; but so do a great many other things which reason and actual experience entirely repudiate. There are hearts--alas! that their name should be legion--where 'far away up' there is no door to be opened, and 'far away down' are no deeps to be fathomed. Now don't, Cousin Nelly, level another such rebuking glance at me from those brown eyes, for I have just thought of a case illustrative of my theory. Don't you remember Miss Stebbins, the old maid, who lived at the foot of the hill, and how I picked a rose for you one morning which had climbed over her fence into the road, and so, of course, became 'public property?' Faugh! I shall never forget the tones of the virago's voice, or the scowl on her forehead as she sallied out of the front door and shook her hand at me. A woman who could refuse a half withered flower to a little child, I wonder that roses could blossom on her soil! At the 'smiting of the rod,' no waters could flow out of such a granite heart. In the moral desert of such a character, no fertilizing stream can make its way." I did not answer Cousin Ned's earnest, eloquent tones, for just then there was the low rap of visitors at the parlor door; but I have always thought there was a good angel in the room while he was speaking, and that it flew straight to Miss Stebbins, and looking down, down, very far down in her heart, he saw a fountain there, rank weeds grew all around it, the seal of years was on its lip, and the dust of time deep on the seal; but the angel smiled, as it floated upward and murmured, "I shall return and remove the seal, and the waters will flow." * * * * * Stern and grim sat Miss Stebbins at her work, one summer afternoon. The golden sunshine slept and danced in its play-place in the corner, and broke into a broad laugh along the ceiling, and a single beam, bolder than the rest, crept to the hem of Miss Stebbins's gown, and looked up with a timid, loving smile in her face, such as no human being ever wore when looking there. Poor Miss Stebbins! those stern, harsh features only daguerreotyped too faithfully the desolate, arid heart beneath them; and that heart, with its dry fountain, was a true type of her life, with the one flower of human affection which had blossomed many years before along its bleak, barren highway.