o lives in Boston? Have you heard of
the old house in Greenley Street, and Uncle Titus Oldways, and
Desire Ledwith, who came home with him after her mother and sisters
went off to Europe, and something had touched her young life that
had left for a while an ache after it? Do you know Rachel Froke, and
the little gray parlor, and the ferns, and the ivies, and the
canary,--and the old, dusty library, with its tall, crowded shelves,
and the square table in the midst, where Uncle Oldways sat? All is
there still, except Uncle Oldways. The very year that had been so
busy elsewhere, with its rushing minutes that clashed out events and
changes as moving atoms clash out heat--that had brought to pass all
that it has taken more than a hundred pages for me to tell,--that
had drawn toward one centre and focus, whither, as into a great
whirling maelstrom of life, so many human affairs and interests are
continually drifting, the far-apart persons that were to be the
persons of one little history,--this same year had lifted Uncle
Titus up. Out of his old age, out of his old house,--out from among
his books, where he thought and questioned and studied, into the
youth and vigor to which, underneath the years, he had been growing;
into the knowledges that lie behind and beyond all books and
Scriptures; into the house not made with hands, the Innermost, the
Divine. Not _away_; I do not believe that. Lifted up, in the life of
the spirit, if only taken within.

Outside,--just a little outside, for she loved him, and her life
had grown into his and into his home,--Desire remained, in this home
that he had given her.

People talked about her, eagerly, curiously. They said she was a
great heiress. Her mother and Mrs. Megilp had written letters to her
overflowing with a mixture of sentiment and congratulation,
condolence and delight. They wanted her to come abroad at once, now,
and join them. What was there, any longer, to prevent?

Desire wrote back to them that she did not think they understood.
There was no break, she said; there was to be no beginning again.
She had come into Uncle Titus's living with him; he had let her do
that, and he had made it so that she could stay. She was not going
to leave him now. She would as soon have robbed him of his money and
run away, while the handling of his money had been his own. It was
but mere handling that made the difference. _Himself_ was not
dependent on his breath. And it was himself that she