His voice ceased, weary. His face looked forth from the shadow depths, worn to silver-white by all the years, then, even as he paused, hope ran across it a bright transforming hand. “It cannot be true! It need not be true! Need it, Lucy? I seem to see--forgive me one more dream,--Murray with you to help him, still keeping Westbury the Westbury of our youth. Of our youth! The old customs, the way of graceful living, you have kept! And now to keep the spirit, the spirit of the place, its simple godliness, its simple friendliness! It has seemed to me God’s ground, where He let me walk a little while and serve and then pass on, hoping! Hoping, Lucy? “For you, there is so much left!” he spoke a bit wistfully. “Such vigor still and life left in you! It does not matter if the years left are few and late, if they can be so strong and beautiful! While, as for me--” he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders, smiling, “oh, these poor old bodies that we wear, how they fetter and confine! Yet we mustn’t scorn them too much either, poor things, when they’ve done their best for us for eighty years!” Something in her listening face recalled him, “Dear me, I am at it again! Troubling you again with the things that shall come after. It was only that I saw before you for a moment--so much! I seem to see so much everywhere, to-day. And yet much of it is sadly jumbled. Your brain never seems to play these sorry tricks on you. You’re feeling patient still, aren’t you,” he smiled, “while I try still to remember and understand?” Slowly keenness grew in his gaze upon her face, mute before him and subtle. His words were a little hesitant, “I do not believe it is quite true, that figure of a portrait. It hurts us both to think about that portrait, because it is not true. Truly, I think my idea was better than that, that you are the spirit of the place. Yes, I prefer my figure of speech to yours, and so I shall keep it and forget yours. We have known each other too long to believe in that portrait,--it’s such a lonesome notion, somehow! Perhaps you feel like a portrait yourself sometimes when you’re sitting alone by the fire and feeling a little down, as we all do sometimes, I’m afraid, but you surely couldn’t expect me to believe you a picture in a frame when for a lifetime you’ve seemed life and energy to me! So remember,” an instant his voice grew lower, “always remember--” the old twinkle showed, “that I don’t believe a word of it!” He knew that her eyes, at full gaze on him, frankly showed all secrets, but they were secrets he was not sure he read. Still he was trying to understand, while he paused for help.