have lived long enough for this."

Those were her first words--after the first kiss. She had trembled and
sighed, when he ran to her and bent over her: it was the one expression
left of all her joy and all her love. But it passed away as other lesser
agitations had passed away. One last reserve of energy obeyed the gentle
persuasion of love. Silent towards all other friends, she was able to
speak to Ovid.

"You used to breathe so lightly," she said. "How is it that I hear you
now. Oh, Ovid, don't cry! I couldn't bear that."

He answered her quietly. "Don't be afraid, darling; I won't distress
you."

"And you will let me say, what I want to say?"

"Oh, yes!"

This satisfied her. "I may rest a little now," she said.

He too was silent; held down by the heavy hand of despair.

The time had been, in the days of his failing health, when the solemn
shadows of evening falling over the fields--the soaring song of the lark
in the bright heights of the midday sky--the dear lost remembrances that
the divine touch of music finds again--brought tears into his eyes.
They were dry eyes now! Those once tremulous nerves had gathered steady
strength, on the broad prairies and in the roving life. Could trembling
sorrow, seeking its way to the sources of tears, overbear the robust
vitality that rioted in his blood, whether she lived or whether she
died? In those deep breathings that had alarmed her, she had indeed
heard the struggle of grief, vainly urging its way to expression against
the masterful health and strength that set moral weakness at defiance.
Nature had remade this man--and Nature never pities.

It was an effort to her to collect her thoughts--but she did collect
them. She was able to tell him what was in her mind.

"Do you think, Ovid, your mother will care much what becomes of me, when
I die?"

He started at those dreadful words--so softly, so patiently spoken. "You
will live," he said. "My Carmina, what am I here for but to bring you
back to life?"

She made no attempt to dispute with him. Quietly, persistently, she
returned to the thought that was in her.

"Say that I forgive your mother, Ovid--and that I only ask one thing in
return. I ask her to leave me to you, when the end has come. My dear,
there is a feeling in me that I can't get over. Don't let me be buried
in a great place all crowded with the dead! I once saw a picture--it
was at home in Italy, I think--an English picture of a quiet little
churc