“He was forging ahead like a trained prize-fighter,” reported the admiring pewholder to a friend. “Nothing of the sentimental weakling about _him_!” March and May Gilchrist, pausing upon the parsonage porch, at sound of a voice singing softly and clearly within, saw, past a half-drawn sash curtain, Hetty rocking back and forth in the firelight, with Hester in her arms. The cripple’s head was thrown back slightly, bringing into relief the small, fine-featured face and lustrous eyes. Her wealth of hair waved and glittered with the motion of the chair like spun gold. It might have been a young mother crooning to her baby in a sort of chant, the words of which were distinctly audible to brother and sister, the nearest window being lowered a few inches from the top. Hester loved heat and light as well as a salamander, but could not breathe freely in a closed room. To-night was one of her “bad times,” and nothing but Hetty’s singing could win her a moderate degree of ease. “Blow winds!” [sang Hetty] “And waft through all the rooms The snowflakes of the cherry blooms! Blow winds! and bend within my reach The fiery blossoms of the peach! “O Life and Love! O happy throng Of thoughts whose only speech is song! O heart of man! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?” March moved forward hastily to ring the bell. He felt like an eavesdropping spy upon the unconscious girls. Without any knowledge of the isolation and mutual dependence of the two, the visitors perceived pathos in the scene—in the clinging helplessness of one and the brooding tenderness expressed in the close clasp and bent head of the other. The singing ceased instantly at the sound of the gong. “By George! what an alarm!” muttered March, discomfited by the clang succeeding his touch. “And I gave it such a genteel pull!” His attitude was apologetic still, when Mr. Wayt’s wife’s sister opened the door. “I seem fated to be heralded noisily!” he said regretfully. “I had as little idea of the tone of your doorbell as you had of the power of Thor’s lungs. Miss Alling, let me introduce my sister! She gave me no peace until I brought her to see you.” May extended her hand with unmistakable intention of good fellowship. “I scolded him for stealing a march upon me this afternoon while I, like a dutiful Christian, was in church,” she said. Her smile was her brother’s, her blithe, refined tones her own. “But I mean to improve my advantages the more diligently on that account.” The genial persiflage had bridged over the always awkward transit from front door to drawing room when the host is the conductor. It was the more embarrassing in this case because the two meagerly furnished parlors were unlighted except as a glimmer from the hall gas added to the sense of space and emptiness.