e you,' he said, himself undoing
the strings, and removing it, then bending his face to hers for a long,
almost insatiable kiss, as they stood strained in one intense embrace,
all in perfect silence on the sister's part.

'I have been making ready for you,' he said at length, partly releasing
her; 'you are to sit here;' and he deposited her, still perfectly
passive in his hands, upon his bed, her back against the wall. 'Put up
your feet! There!' And having settled her to his satisfaction, he
knelt down on the floor, one arm round her waist, one hand in hers,
looking earnestly up into her face, with his soul in his eyes, her
other hand resting on his shoulder.

'How are the little ones, Ave?'

'Very well. Minna so longed to come.'

'Better not,' said Leonard; 'she is so little, and these white walls
might distress her fancy. They will remember our singing on the last
Sunday evening instead. Do you remember, Ave, how they begged to stay
on and on till it grew so dark that we could not see a word or a note,
and went on from memory?' and he very softly hummed the restful
cadence, dying away into

'Till in the ocean of Thy love
We lose ourselves in Heaven above.'

'How can you bear to think of those dear happy days!'

'Because you will be glad of them by and by, said Leonard; 'and I am
very glad of them now, though they might have been so much better, if
only we had known.'

'They were the only happy days of all my life!'

'I hope not--I trust not, dearest. You may and ought to have much
better and happier days to come.'

She shook her head, with a look of inexpressible anguish, almost of
reproach.

'Indeed I mean it, Ave,' he said; 'I have thought it over many times,
and I see that the discomfort and evil of our home was in the spirit of
pride and rebellion that I helped you to nurse. It was like a wedge,
driving us farther and farther apart; and now that it is gone, and you
will close up again, when you are kind and yielding to Henry--what a
happy peaceful home you may make out in the prairie land!'

'As if we could ever--'

'Nay, Averil, could not you recover it if I were dying now of sickness?
I know you would, though you might not think so at the time. Believe
me, then, when I say that I am quite willing to have it as it is--to be
my own man to the last--to meet with such precious inestimable kindness
from so many. Of course I should like to live longer, and do something
worth doing; bu