Kenneth remarked, as I began to tighten the strings, 'Can it
ever be used again? Don't you know, Stanton, that it was not only a
broken heart, but a broken fiddle you left behind you, when you
departed so suddenly last time you were here? It's astonishing how
soon hearts get mended, and fiddles too, it appears. Goody has
shuddered at the sight of that instrument ever since. I thought the
epitaph on her tombstone would be, "She never played again!"'

I found a difficulty in playing that night in the midst of this
nonsense. I seemed to have lived a lifetime since last I had touched
my violin; but when I had once started, I as usual forgot everything
but just the comfort and soothing it brought me. And when I had
finished, Nelly said, impulsively, 'There! now you look like your old
self, Hilda. You haven't been the same since that night Kenneth was
speaking of. Don't you love your violin? I am sure you do, from the
way you handle it!'

'Of course I love it,' I responded warmly.

Kenneth laughed. 'You have a rival, Stanton. I tell you, when she
stands up there, her eyes getting bigger and bigger, and her precious
fiddle hugged tighter and tighter, you are absolutely nowhere--out of
her affections and thoughts altogether! I think, if I were in your
place, I should quietly make away with it when you have an opportunity.
It will bring discord into your life, I warn you; it is capable of it!'

We all laughed; but Philip said to me afterwards, 'Everything that I
see and hear makes me realize afresh what an anxiety and strain I have
brought into your life. Can you forgive me?'

'Is there anything to forgive?' I asked. 'I have been anxious,
Philip--it was no wonder, but I think the trouble and anxiety has only
made me realize the force and strength of that verse in the Psalms, as
I never should have done otherwise: "God is our refuge and strength, a
very present help in trouble."'

'And it is worth going through the darkness to experience His
tenderness and care,' was the rejoinder.

Philip had a great deal of business to do for the next month or two,
and then it was settled that our marriage should take place the latter
end of November. A dreary month for a wedding generally, but it was
not so in our case, and it was a sunshiny, frosty morning when we stood
together in the little village church as man and wife.

I could not have believed, if any one had told me a twelvemonth before,
how much I should have