Poor Helen! It was little marvel that she wept as all women weep when their hearts are broken. It is so easy to break a heart; sometimes a mere word will do it. But the vanishing of the winged Love-god from the soul is even more than heart-break,--it is utter and irretrievable loss,--complete and dominating chaos out of which no good thing can ever be designed or created. In our days we do our best to supply the place of a reluctant Eros by the gilded, grinning Mammon-figure which we try to consider as superior to any silver-pinioned god that ever descended in his rainbow car to sing heavenly songs to mortals; but it is an unlovely substitute,--a hideous idol at best; and grasp its golden knees and worship it as we will, it gives us little or no comfort in the hours of strong temptation or trouble. We have made a mistake--we, in our progressive generation,--we have banished the old sweetnesses, triumphs and delights of life, and we have got in exchange steam and electricity. But the heart of the age clamors on unsatisfied,--none of our “new” ideas content it--nothing pacifies its restless yearning; it feels--this great heart of human life--that it is losing more than it gains, hence the incessant, restless aching of the time, and the perpetual longing for something Science cannot teach,--something vague, beautiful, indefinable, yet satisfying to every pulse of the soul; and the nearest emotion to that divine solace is what we in our higher and better moments recognize as Love. And Love was lost to Helen Murray; the choice pearl had fallen in the vast gulf of Might-have-been, and not all the forces of Nature would ever restore to her that priceless gem.