"Yes, Hugh, very often. At first with tears and sadness, but gradually with hope, and a certain looking forward instead of backward. At first I kept all my anniversaries sacred, the many days hallowed by associations with my dear ones; but gradually I tried to break up the habit, and now I only think of their heavenly birthdays,--the days when they left the earth,--and even these have come to be pleasant. I have always been fond of autumn. There is something that charms me in the hazy air and colored foliage. It is not sadness,--it is not joy,--but a sweet peace. Then, my dead always seem near to me. If you like, I will give you something I once wrote on the subject, expressing this _feeling_." "Do, aunt!" said Hugh, earnestly: for so seldom did Aunt Faith allude to her past life and its sorrows, that all the cousins held it in reverent respect, and although they often spoke of it among themselves, they never broke through the bounds of Aunt Faith's silence. In her own room hung the portrait of her husband, Lester Sheldon, a young man's face, with blue eyes, and thick golden hair, tossed carelessly back from the white forehead, while below, the firm mouth told of decision and self-control beyond his years. Once, when Bessie was a child, she sat looking at this portrait for some time in silence. Then she said, "Aunt Faith, if that is your husband, what makes him so young when you are so old?" "He died when he was a young man, little Bessie." "But he won't know you when you go to heaven, I'm afraid," continued the child, looking anxiously at her aunt's gray hair. "Oh, I shall be young then, too, Bessie. Here is a picture of me when I was eighteen," said Aunt Faith, taking a box from her drawer, and drawing out a miniature. It was one of those lovely, old-fashioned ivory pictures, showing a fresh young face with dimples, and a sunny smile. "Oh, auntie, _that_ isn't you!" Bessie had exclaimed, and the other children having come into the room, the picture was shown to them also. Since that day they had never seen it, but Hugh retained a vivid remembrance of the picture, and, as Aunt Faith looked through her desk to find the paper, something in her face recalled it to his mind, and there came across him, like a revelation, a vision of what she was at eighteen. Faith Warrington at eighteen! Faith Warrington, who had long been Mrs. Sheldon with her gray hair and pale face. Going up to his room, Hugh seated himself by the window, and opening the paper, read the following lines:-- "Far back within the cycles of the past, A train of centuries rolls, From out whose cloudy borders came the day Of memory for all souls. How long it seems, a thousand years ago! How dark and weary, if we did not know A thousand years are but as yesterday within His sight, Seeing that it is past like one brief watch within the night!