It must have been nearly midnight when Reuben rose finally to go. There had been so much to talk about, and time had flown so softly, buoyantly along, that the evening seemed to him only to have begun, and he felt that he fain would have had it go on forever. These delicious hours that were past had been one sweet sustained conspiracy to do him honor, to minister to his pleasure. No word or smile or deferential glance of attention had been wanting to make complete the homage with which the family had chosen to envelop him. The sense of tender domestic intimacy had surcharged the very air he breathed. It had not even been necessary to keep the ball of talk in motion: so well and truly did they know one another, that silences had come as natural rests--silences more eloquent than spoken words could be of mutual liking and trust. The outside world had shrunk to nothingness. Here within this charmed circle of softened light was home. All that the whole universe contained for him of beauty, of romance, of reverential desire, of happiness, here within touch it was centred. And it was all, all his! The farewells that found their way into phrases left scarcely a mark upon his memory. There had been cordial, softly significant words of smiling leave-taking with Ethel and her mother, and then, divinely prompted by the spirit which ruled this blessed hour, they had gone away, and he stood alone in the hallway with the woman he worshipped. He held her hand in his, and there was no need for speech. Slowly, devoutly, he bowed his head over this white hand, and pressed his lips upon it. There were tears in his eyes when he stood erect again, and through them he saw with dim rapture the marvel of an angel’s face, pale, yet glowing in the half light, lovely beyond all mortal dreams; and on this face there shone a smile, tender, languorous, trembling with the supreme ecstasy of a soul. Were words spoken? Reuben could hardly have told as he walked away down the path to the street. “Bless you! bless you!” was what the song-birds carolled in his brain; but whether the music was an echo of what he had said, did not make itself clear. He was scarcely conscious of the physical element of walking in his progress. Rather it seemed to him that his whole being was afloat in the ether, wafted forward by the halcyon winds of a beneficent destiny. Was there ever such unthinkable bliss before in all the vast span of the universe?