“No. I don’t wonder at that; but if it is strange to you, Phil, think how much more strange to me! That is the partner of my life. I have never had another, or thought of another. That--girl! If we are to meet again, as I have always hoped we should meet again, what am I to say to her,--I, an old man? Yes; I know what you mean. I am not an old man for my years; but my years are threescore and ten, and the play is nearly played out. How am I to meet that young creature? We used to say to each other that it was forever, that we never could be but one, that it was for life and death. But what--what am I to say to her, Phil, when I meet her again, that--that angel? No, it is not her being an angel that troubles me; but she is so young! She is like my--my granddaughter,” he cried, with a burst of what was half sobs, half laughter; “and she is my wife,--and I am an old man--an old man! And so much has happened that she could not understand.” I was too much startled by this strange complaint to know what to say. It was not my own trouble, and I answered it in the conventional way. “They are not as we are, sir,” I said; “they look upon us with larger, other eyes than ours.” “Ah! you don’t know what I mean,” he said quickly; and in the interval he had subdued his emotion. “At first, after she died, it was my consolation to think that I should meet her again,--that we never could be really parted. But, my God, how I have changed since then! I am another man,--I am a different being. I was not very young even then,--twenty years older than she was; but her youth renewed mine. I was not an unfit partner; she asked no better, and knew as much more than I did in some things,--being so much nearer the source,--as I did in others that were of the world. But I have gone a long way since then, Phil,--a long way; and there she stands, just where I left her.” I pressed his arm again. “Father,” I said, which was a title I seldom used, “we are not to suppose that in a higher life the mind stands still.” I did not feel myself qualified to discuss such topics, but something one must say. “Worse, worse!” he replied; “then she too will be, like me, a different being, and we shall meet as what? as strangers, as people who have lost sight of each other, with a long past between us,--we who parted, my God! with--with--” His voice broke and ended for a moment then while, surprised and almost shocked by what he said, I cast about in my mind what to reply, he withdrew his arm suddenly from mine, and said in his usual tone, “Where shall we hang the picture, Phil? It must be here in this room. What do you think will be the best light?”