“I wonder if she thought me cold,” he said to himself; “I must have seemed so. But still I am sure she understood me. She has a wonderfully quick and delicate sympathy. Yes, I am certain she understood me or she would not have trusted me so. The only unsatisfactory remembrance I have of our conversation is of her sudden distress when she bethought herself of what she hinted at as a barrier on her side. What could it be? Some disgrace in her family. Something connected with her father. But that will soon be explained and set straight. Nothing not actually affecting herself could conic between us.” So he whiled away the many hours of his journey, tedious only in so far as the days seemed long till he could see her again, hear repeated by her own lips the sweet assurance, which, had he been a vainer or more conventional man, he would have read many a time ere now; in her changing colour, the varying tones of her voice, the childlike trust and appeal in her innocent eyes when she raised them to his. I don’t know that ever Ralph Severn was happier than during this journey back to Altes. Truly, this falling in love of his had done great things for him: sunnied his whole nature, and for the first time revealed to him the marvellous beauty there is in this life of ours; the light and joy which underlie it, our intense powers of happiness no less than of suffering. All which things being real and true, whatever be the dark mysteries for the present on the other side; it was, I doubt not, well for him to have had a glimpse of them, an actual personal experience of happiness, however short-lived. We speak fluently of the discipline of suffering? Is nothing to be learnt from its twin sister, joy? Or is she sent but to mock us? I cannot think so. Her visits may be short and rare, but some good gift of enduring kind she surely leaves behind, if only, blinded by the tears we shed at her departure, we did not fail to see it. Such, however, it seems to me, is not the case with the highest and deepest natures. To them, I think, all life experience is but as fresh and precious soil in a garden where all is turned to good account sooner or later. There may be ugly and unsightly things about; the flowers, when withered, may seem to pollute the air and cumber the ground; but only to our ignorance does it appear so. Under the great Master-hand all is arranged, nothing overlooked. Every shower of rain, every ray of sunshine, has its peculiar mission. All influences tend to the one great end in view, the ultimate perfection of the work. If only the gardener be humble and willing, patient, and, withal, earnest to learn. Then even from his mistakes he shall gain precious and lasting fruit. Ralph Severn’s character was no shallow one. His love for Marion was, as I have said, the one great affection of his life. And something his nature gained from its present happiness that it never afterwards lost. Something indefinite and subtle. But an influence for good.