IT is vain for any man to say that, in the deepest depths of woe, he can receive no scrap of comfort from the tenderness of others. Words may help him very little; commonplace exhortations are a weariness to the worn-out soul; he lies at the bottom of his own distress, and does not want it probed or touched. But gradually a little light and warmth steal through the darkness, not direct from heaven alone, but reflected from kind eyes and hearts. He is not alone in the world, although he ever must be lonely; and the sense of other life than his restores him slowly to his own. After all the kindness shown me, and the good-will wholly undeserved, I felt ashamed to be so swallowed up by my own sorrow. Some indulgence I might claim from people of kindly nature, on the ground that it was not sorrow only, but dark mystery and doubt, and even some sense of black disgrace, which had robbed me of my proper vigour and due power of manhood. And it is more than likely that the long and wasting illness, from which I had not yet quite recovered, still impaired the force and tone of mind as well as body. But I do not want to make excuses, as people nearly always say in the very breath they make them with. Only I was now resolved that no more should be needed. On the Monday, I drove _Spanker_ home; which was a great delight to him, and to me as well, for the world looked brighter, when my face was set to fight it. Or rather I should say, to fight that vile and wicked part of it, which had robbed me of my just claim to a happy though humble place in it. In my breast-pocket I carried the book containing my wife’s last words to me; for my good Aunt Parslow had kindly stitched it in a white kid glove, or a pair of them, which had been white in their early days. And in the pocket on the other side, I carried fifty pounds in bank-notes, so as to be able to start well, and procure better judgment than my own, if it should appear advisable. But about that I was not sure as yet; being very loth to ask any other man’s opinion, however old he might be, about my pretty Kitty. It was now the longest day, which is the most excellent and perfect time of year, in at least three years out of every four. Sometimes there arises a strong hot June; but scarcely more than once in twenty summers; and then, before the days come to their turn, leaves are getting flabby, and the grass is over-ripe, and the petals of the wild rose lie in the ditch, and the blossom of the wheat has dropped, its little quivery bee’s-wing. More often there has been a black Pentecost, a May of lowering skies and blight, with every animal’s coat put the wrong way on his back; and then a June of shrink and shiver, without a fair flower in the garden, and with the hedgerows full of black caterpillars. And every man flaps himself with his arms, like a cock when he springs up to crow; but the hedger and ditcher has nothing to crow at, and is too hoarse to do it, if he had.