"Ay, of spirits meeting. If you believe in immortality, you must believe in the meeting of spirits. What shape or form do they bear? Here, before us, is my daughter and your mother, an old woman in looks, aged by a grief that was hard enough to bear without being made harder by constant brooding. When my wife died, your mother was a babe, and my wife was almost a girl. So they parted. How do they meet now? This child of mine looks old enough to be the mother of my wife. How do they meet?--as mother and babe again? It is a strange thought, not to be answered. Yet by and by it shall be made plain to us." Alfred listened and wondered. Although he had not been unaccustomed to hear his grandfather speak of such matters, he had never before been impressed by them. As he bowed his head to the bed, other thoughts than selfish ones came to him,--thoughts which brought with them a consciousness of something higher than the aspirations by which he had hitherto been guided. If such influences as those which softened him and made him better for the time were less fleeting and more endurable, we should be the gainers. But in most cases they are as intangible in their effect as a breeze that touches us lightly. Winds come, and rain, and heavy clouds; and the unhealthful passion and desire that are stirred by the storm sweep the chastening thought into a lost oblivion. The old man looked hopefully upon the form of his grandson in its attitude of contrition and softened feeling, and he waited long before he desired Alfred to rise. With a distinct purpose, which he was anxious not to disguise, he at the same time moved the screen, so that, as he and Alfred sat at the table, the bed upon which the dead daughter and mother lay was not hidden from sight. "Alfred," the old man said, after a slight pause, "have you anything to tell me?" "What should I have to tell you, grandfather, except--except to repeat that I am ashamed of myself for coming home dr---- not quite sober, and that I beg your pardon?" The old man did not look up; he toyed with Lily's workbox, which was on the table, and said gently, pointing to the bed, "Ask pardon there. But you have done that, I think." "Yes, grandfather, indeed." "That is something. At such a time as this we should be considerate of one another. These occasions happily come but seldom in life, and sometimes they open the road to amendment. Tell me, Alfred, have I been kind to you?" "Yes, grandfather." "And you look upon me as a friend?" "Yes." "Yet you have nothing to say to me--no confidence to repose in me?" "Nothing particular that I can think of." A shade of disappointment passed across the old man's face like a cloud. But a rift of light chased it away as he said, "You love Lily?" "Indeed I do that, grandfather."