“Anthony,” said Barbara in a gentle voice, “do you know what we have got to live on? In good years it comes to about 150 pounds, but once, when my father got into that lawsuit over the dog that was supposed to kill the sheep, it went down to 70 pounds. That was the winter when two of the little ones died for want of proper food—nothing else—and I remember that the rest of us had to walk barefoot in the mud and snow because there was no money to buy us boots, and only some of us could go out at once because we had no cloaks to put on. Well, all this may happen again. And so, Anthony, do you think that I should be right to throw away thirty pounds a year and to make a quarrel with my aunt, who is rich and kind-hearted although very over-bearing, and the only friend we have? If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken ill, and he is not very strong, what would become of us? Unless Aunt Thompson chose to help we should all have to go to the workhouse, for girls who have not been specially trained can earn nothing, except perhaps as domestic servants, if they are strong enough. I don’t want to go away and read to Aunt Maria and take the pug dog out walking, although it is true I should like to see Italy, but I must—can’t you understand—I must. So please reproach me no more, for it is hard to bear—especially from you.” “Stop! For God’s sake, stop!” said Anthony. “I am a brute to have spoken like that, and I’m helpless; that’s the worst of it. Oh! my darling, don’t you understand? Don’t you understand——?” “No,” answered Barbara, shaking her head and beginning to cry. “That I love you, that I have always loved you, and that I always shall love you until—until—the moon ceases to shine?” and he pointed to that orb which had appeared above the sea. “They say that it is dead already, and no doubt will come to an end like everything else,” remarked Barbara, seeking to gain time. Then for a while she sought nothing more, who found herself lost in her lover’s arms. So there they plighted their troth, that was, they swore, more enduring than the moon, for indeed they so believed. “Nothing shall part us except death,” he said. “Why should death part us?” she answered, looking him bravely in the eyes. “I mean to live beyond death, and while I live and wherever I live death shall _not_ part us, if you’ll be true to me.” “I’ll not fail in that,” he answered. And so their souls melted into rapture and were lifted up beyond the world. The song of the nightingales was heavenly music in their ears, and the moon’s silver rays upon the sea were the road by which their linked souls travelled to the throne of Him who had lit their lamp of love, and there made petition that through all life’s accidents and death’s darkness it might burn eternally.