o a trunk, mended their broken noses, and set them
in place once more; but I hid myself away for several days, much as
Moses was hidden, but for a less dignified reason.

After a time, I cooled off, and decided to accept the world as it stood,
and not to rage because the millennium did not come before I was fitted
to enjoy it.

Mrs. Purblind ran over one afternoon, and I could see that she was far
from happy. I had noticed for some weeks various changes in the
direction of improvement, in her care of her husband and household. I
had also noticed that Mr. Purblind's conduct did not keep pace with
these improvements, but I fancied Mrs. Purblind was not sharp enough to
see or sensitive enough to care. In this it seems I erred, as I have in
one, or perhaps two, other directions during my life.

As Mrs. Purblind, for the first time since I have known her, didn't seem
to care to talk, I took up a book at random, and began reading aloud. As
luck would have it, I stumbled into some passages descriptive of the
ideal home, and before I could stumble out again, the poor woman burst
into tears. I suppose that tender little sentence served as the key that
unlocked the floodgates. As soon as her grief had spent itself, she
apologized, and ascribed her tears to bad news in a letter or something,
and shortly afterward left. I watched her walking down the street, until
my eyes were too dim to see her. It grieved me sorely that the cause of
her sorrow was so deep, and so delicate that I could not offer her my
sympathy. Her tears were piteous to me, and I wanted to take her to my
heart, and tell her how sorry I was for her; but to do that would have
been to take advantage of her moment of weakness, and that I could
not--must not do. So I let her go from me with merely a few commonplace
expressions of regret that she had received disturbing news, while all
the time my heart was aching in unison with hers, and I kept her with me
in thought, all day.

I went down to the lake directly after dinner; several things were
troubling me, and I wanted to lay my puzzled head on Mother Nature's
bosom.

My run down the steep sides of the bluff set the blood to coursing
smartly through my veins, and a new and more cheerful stream of thought
to flowing.

I was tired that night, and it was a luxury to lie flat upon my back on
the beach, listening to the rhythmical thud of the big, long wave at my
feet, and the song of the stars overhead. There is s