"Am I not right, dear?"

"Yes, you are right, and I have been false to my creed. You have
taken a load off my heart, dearest. Henceforth there shall be but
one mind and one soul between us. You have made me feel what it
is that a man wants, what is the help that is mete for him."

He looked into her eyes and kissed her again; and then rose up,
for there was something within him like a moving of new life,
which lifted him, and set him on his feet. And he stood with
kindling brow, gazing into the autumn air, as his heart went
sorrowing, but hopefully "sorrowing, back through all the
faultful past." And she sat on at first, and watched his face,
and neither spoke nor moved for some minutes. Then she rose, too,
and stood by his side:--

And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And so across the hills they went,
In that new world which is the old.

Yes, that new world, through the golden gates of which they had
passed together, which is the old, old world, after all, and
nothing else. The same old and new world it was to our fathers
and mothers as it is to us, and shall be to our children--a world
clear and bright, and ever becoming clearer and brighter to the
humble, and true, and pure of heart--to every man and woman who
will live in it as the children of the Maker and Lord of it,
their Father. To them, and to them alone, is that world, old and
new, given, and all that is in it, fully and freely to enjoy. All
others but these are occupying where they have no title, "they
are sowing much, but bringing in little; they eat, but have not
enough; they drink, but are not filled with drink; they clothe
themselves, but there is none warm; and he of them who earneth
wages, earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes." But
these have the world and all things for a rightful and rich
inheritance; for they hold them as dear children of Him in whose
hand it and they are lying, and no power in earth or hell shall
pluck them out of their Father's hand.

FINIS

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tom Brown at Oxford, by Thomas Hughes

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