He sat motionless most of the time. Now and then he would lift his head as if to speak, but he did not speak; and when Molly was silent, he rose and again went to his room. What passed there, I need not say. Walter was a true man in that he was ready to become truer: what better thing could be said of any unfinished man! CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST, BUT NOT THE END. It was the second spring, and Molly and Walter sat again in the twilighted garden. Walter had just come home from his day’s work; he had been plowing. He was a broad-shouldered, lean, powerful, handsome fellow, with a rather slow step, but soldierly carriage. His hands were brown and mighty, and took a little more washing than before. “My father does not seem quite himself!” he said to Molly. “He has been a little depressed for a day or two,” she answered. “There’s nothing wrong, is there, Molly?” “No, nothing. It is only his spirits. They have never been good once your mother died. He declares himself the happiest man in the county, now you are at home with us.” Walter was up early the next morning, and again at his work. A new-born wind blew on his face, and sent the blood singing through his veins. If we could hear all finest sounds, we might, perhaps, gather not only the mood, but the character of a man, by listening to the music or the discord the river of his blood was making, as through countless channels it irrigated lungs and brain: Walter’s that morning must have been weaving lovely harmonies! It was a fresh spring wind, the breath of the world reviving from its winter-swoon. His father had managed to pay his debts; his hopes were high, his imagination active; his horses were pulling strong; the plow was going free, turning over the furrow smooth and clean; he was one of the powers of nature at work for the harvest of the year; he was in obedient consent with the will that makes the world and all its summers and winters! He was a thinking, choosing, willing part of the living whole, its vital fountain issuing from the heart of the Father of men! Work lay all about him, and he was doing the work! And Molly was at home, singing about hers! At night, when the sun was set, and his day’s work done, he would go home to her and his father, to his room and his books and his writing! But as he labored, his thought this day was most of his father: he was trying to _make_ something to cheer him. The eyes of the old man never lost their love, but when he forgot to smile, Molly looked grave, and Walter felt that a cloud was over the sun. They were a true family: when one member suffered, all the members suffered with it. So throughout the morning, as his horses pulled, and the earth opened, and the plow folded the furrow back, Walter thought, and made, and remembered: he had a gift for remembering completions, and forgetting the chips and rejected rubbish of the process. In the evening he carried borne with him these verses: