JUDITH’S brother had chosen to sink his deeper convictions and to embrace expediency as his lawful spouse. A callow pessimism had persuaded him to scoff at what he chose to denounce as “the mad posing of hyper-æsthetical principles.” He loved Ophelia Gusset in a rich physical fashion; the mediæval spirituality of the poets had cheated him too long. He began to believe Dante a fool and Petrarch a person who had sentimentally wasted his opportunities. Five thousand a year, a romantic home, a superb and comely wife—these facts suggested compromises that were not to be contemned. What could not money give him—Spanish orange-groves, Italian cypress thickets, brilliant books, pictures, opulence in mood and movement. Were there not thousands of unfortunates scrambling in life’s gutters for bare bread! Pandering to that glib-mouthed sophist known as “common-sense,” he abandoned certain spiritual ideals as the mere excrescences of youth. Having kissed expediency upon both cold cheeks, he was prepared for her to lead him into her most splendid habitation. Coincidence, predestination, or the voice of the subconscious soul! What matters it which we accept, provided we recognize the intense motive power a single circumstance may exert upon some individual atom. Gabriel Strong, poling out his light “outrigger” from the Saltire Hall boat-house, had no vision of judgment before his eyes. He bared his elbows, swung out manfully, heard the ripples prattling at the prow. He was a man who loved to possess his physical moments in solitude. The quickened blood set streams of thought aspinning, the deeper breathing etherealized the brain. There had been heavy rain in the night, and blue shadows covered the woods. A haze of heat shimmered above the mist-dimmed hills. Infinite freshness breathed from the dew-brilliant meadows. May seemed to have lifted once again her fair young face to the sun. A deep splendor shone upon wood and meadow, a green radiance dappled over with gold. Earth smiled through her tears; the shadowy trees shook pearls from their stately towers. “Young man, my ribbon.” The hail came like elfin music from under the green canopy of a willow. There was a suggestive beauty in the voice that had spoken. Gabriel, dreamer of dreams, had imagined himself supreme in most egotistic solitude. He “backed water” spontaneously. His sculls foamed in the tide. Philosophy or no philosophy, he saw a young girl standing above him on the bank, with sudden sunlight streaming through her loosened hair. Her face shone like ivory under the green foliage arching her head. The water ran silver bright below the grass and water-weeds at her feet. There was a strange queenliness in her manner as she looked down upon him and pointed with one white hand at the rippling shallows. “My ribbon.”