mes of gilt.

Her husband was pleased that she should remain so long before them. And
for a while, as she stood lost in contemplation, he did not speak.
Once she glanced at him, and then back at the stern face of the
General,--stern, yet kindly. The eyes, deep-set under bushy brows, like
Hugh's, were full of fire; and yet the artist had made them human, too.
A dark, reddish brown, close-trimmed mustache and beard hid the mouth
and chin. Hugh had inherited the nose, but the father's forehead was
wider and fuller. Hugh was at once a newer type, and an older. The
face and figure of the General were characteristic of the mid-century
American of the northern states, a mixture of boldness and caution and
Puritanism, who had won his battles in war and commerce by a certain
native quality of mind.

"I never appreciated him," said Hugh at length, "until after he
died--long after. Until now, in fact. At times we were good friends,
and then something he would say or do would infuriate me, and I would
purposely make him angry. He had a time and a rule for everything, and I
could not bear rules. Breakfast was on the minute, an hour in his study
to attend to affairs about the place, so many hours in his office at the
mills, in the president's room at the bank, vestry and charity meetings
at regular intervals. No movement in all this country round about was
ever set on foot without him. He was one to be finally reckoned with.
And since his death, many proofs have come to me of the things he did
for people of which the world was ignorant. I have found out at last
that his way of life was, in the main, the right way. But I know now,
Honora," he added soberly, slipping his hand within her arm, "I know now
that without you I never could do all I intend to do."

"Oh, don't say that!" she cried. "Don't say that!"

"Why not?" he asked, smiling at her vehemence. "It is not a confession
of weakness. I had the determination, it is true. I could--I should have
done something, but my deeds would have lacked the one thing needful
to lift them above the commonplace--at least for me. You are the
inspiration. With you here beside me, I feel that I can take up this
work with joy. Do you understand?"

She pressed his hand with her arm.

"Hugh," she said slowly, "I hope that I shall be a help, and not--not a
hindrance."

"A hindrance!" he exclaimed. "You don't know, you can't realize, what
you are to me."

She was silent, and when she lifted h