devotional hush. It
acted on him like the silent spell of service in a Church. He forgot his
estimate of the minutes, he formed a prayer, he refused to hear the Cupid
swinging, he droned a sound of sentences to deaden his ears. Ideas of
eternity rolled in semblance of enormous clouds. Death was a black bird
among them. The piano rang to Nataly's young voice and his. The gold and
white of the chairs welcomed a youth suddenly enrolled among the wealthy
by an enamoured old lady on his arm. Cupid tick-ticked.--Poor soul! poor
woman! How little we mean to do harm when we do an injury! An
incomprehensible world indeed at the bottom and at the top. We get on
fairly at the centre. Yet it is there that we do the mischief making such
a riddle of the bottom and the top. What is to be said! Prayer quiets
one. Victor peered at Nataly fervently on her knees and Mrs. Burman bowed
over her knotted fingers. The earnestness of both enforced an effort at a
phrased prayer in him. Plungeing through a wave of the scent of
Marechale, that was a tremendous memory to haul him backward and forward,
he beheld his prayer dancing across the furniture; a diminutive thin
black figure, elvish, irreverent, appallingly unlike his proper emotion;
and he brought his hands just to touch, and got to the edge of his chair,
with split knees. At once the figure vanished. By merely looking at
Nataly, he passed into her prayer. A look at Mrs. Burman made it
personal, his own. He heard the cluck of a horrible sob coming from him.
After a repetition of his short form of prayer deeply stressed, he
thanked himself with the word 'sincere,' and a queer side-thought on our
human susceptibility to the influence of posture. We are such creatures.

Nataly resumed her seat. Mrs. Burman had raised her head. She said: 'We
are at peace.' She presently said, with effort: 'It cannot last with me.
I die in nature's way. I would bear forgiveness with me, that I may have
it above. I give it here, to you, to all. My soul is cleansed, I trust.
Much was to say. My strength will not. Unto God, you both!'

The Rev. Groseman Buttermore was moving on slippered step to the back of
the sofa. Nataly dropped before the unseeing, scarce breathing, lady for
an instant. Victor murmured an adieu, grateful for being spared the
ceremonial shake of hands. He turned away, then turned back, praying for
power to speak, to say that he had found his heart, was grateful, would
hold her in memory. He fel