The little home put the finishing touch to the picture, and Steve looked at it so long and so intently that he might have been accused of rudeness had the occupants seen him. His thoughts, however, were anything but rude, for a home had always been sacred to him. Had he acted at the bidding of his fine instinct, he would have raised his hat and stood uncovered in its presence. Since his marriage a home had taken on a deeper meaning. Without losing a jot of its sacredness, it had come to stand for something of pain. On his walk that morning he had noted many things with new eyes--the flowers gladdening the face of nature; the trees rearing their proud heads and standing each in his own place--each doing his own work; the birds trilling their songs of praise and stirring in the soul those holy aspirations whose feet scarce touch the earth and whose face is set toward heaven--all these doing the Father's work and answering with the quick response of perfect obedience, perfect sympathy to the divine will. Viewing them now with a soul made receptive by the tender sadness of real life, Steve asked himself over and over again, Am I fulfilling the divine mission? When he reached home his face wore a thoughtful look, and the question of the morning lay deep within his eyes as he walked into the garden and came upon Nannie's work. For a long time he stood there gazing at it. An ordinary man would have been intensely angry, and whatever good he might have felt or purposed during his walk would have taken wings. But it did not occur to Steve just then to be angry. Up to this time, like most another really thoughtful person, he had done very little actual thinking, but now he was entered upon a life which is God's own school for the development of character, and in the mental and spiritual awakening of which he was only dimly conscious he began to see that many things which he had hitherto accepted as a matter of course were in reality the result of causes which could and should be removed. Passion blurs the vision, and Steve was straining his eyes to see just then, so it was necessary above all things that he should hold himself in hand. "What makes Nannie act so?" This was the question he was asking as he stood by his despoiled garden, and the answer began to come to him in a shadowy sort of way. It was not just what he imagined it would be--not just what he would have wished it to be. Few answers take on the shape we anticipate or desire, but it was undeniably an answer, and he turned, possibly in obedience, to a cool, shady nook near by, and plucking a few late violets which were growing there, went into the house where Nannie sat alone at breakfast, and laying these gently on the table beside her, without a word went on his way to the station and took his usual train.