Then—those children, rosy, fair-haired; no, they do not disturb you with their prattle now—they are yours! Toss away there on the greensward—never mind the hyacinths, the snowdrops, the violets, if so be any are there; the perfume of their healthful lips is worth all the flowers of the world. No need now to gather wild bouquets to love and cherish: flower, tree, gun, are all dead things; things livelier hold your soul. And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, watching, tending, caressing, loving, till your own heart grows pained with tenderest jealousy, and cures itself with loving. You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach thankfulness; your heart is full of it. No need now, as once, of bursting blossoms of trees taking leaf and greenness, to turn thought kindly and thankfully; for, ever beside you, there is bloom, and ever beside you there is fruit—for which eye, heart and soul are full of unknown, and unspoken, because unspeakable thank-offering. And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you down—no lonely moanings and wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses. _The_ step is noiseless, and yet distinct beside you. The white curtains are drawn, or withdrawn by the magic of that other presence; and the soft, cool hand is upon your brow. No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely come in to steal a word away from that outer world, which is pulling at their skirts; but, ever the sad, shaded brow of her, whose lightest sorrow for your sake is your greatest grief—if it were not a greater joy. The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood falling under the growing heat. —So, continued I, this heart would be at length itself—striving with everything gross, even now as it clings to grossness. Love would make its strength native and progressive. Earth’s cares would fly. Joys would double. Susceptibilities be quickened; love master self; and having made the mastery, stretch onward, and upward toward infinitude. And if the end came, and sickness brought that follower—Great Follower—which sooner or later is sure to come after, then the heart, and the hand of love, ever near, are giving to your tired soul, daily and hourly, lessons of that love which consoles, which triumphs, which circleth all and centereth in all—love infinite and divine! Kind hands—none but _hers_—will smooth the hair upon your brow as the chill grows damp and heavy on it; and her fingers—none but hers—will lie in yours as the wasted flesh stiffens and hardens for the ground. _Her_ tears—you could feel no others, if oceans fell—will warm your drooping features once more to life; once more your eye, lighted in joyous triumph, kindles in her smile, and then— The fire fell upon the hearth; the blaze gave a last leap—a flicker—then another—caught a little remaining twig—blazed up—wavered—went out. There was nothing but a bed of glowing embers, over which the white ashes gathered fast. I was alone, with only my dog for company. [Illustration]