bers in an
inexhaustible treasure-house which by some strange stroke of destiny
was his. And yet he felt at times the vague sadness of them, like the
sadness of the autumn, and longed to dispel it.

"It is so wonderful," she went on presently, in a low voice, "it is so
wonderful I sometimes think that it must be like--like this; that it
cannot last. I have been wondering whether we shall be as happy when the
world discovers that you are great."

He shook his head at her slowly, in mild reproof.

"Isn't that borrowing trouble, Victoria?" he said. "I think you need
have no fear of finding the world as discerning as yourself."

She searched his face.

"Will you ever change?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "No man can stand such flattery as that without
deteriorating, I warn you. I shall become consequential, and pompous,
and altogether insupportable, and then you will leave me and never
realize that it has been all your fault."

Victoria laughed. But there was a little tremor in her voice, and her
eyes still rested on his face.

"But I am serious, Austen," she said. "I sometimes feel that, in the
future, we shall not always have many such days as these. It's selfish,
but I can't help it. There are so many things you will have to do
without me. Don't you ever think of that?"

His eyes grew grave, and he reached out and took her hand in his.

"I think, rather, of the trials life may bring, Victoria," he answered,
"of the hours when judgment halts, when the way is not clear. Do you
remember the last night you came to Jabe Jenney's? I stood in the road
long after you had gone, and a desolation such as I had never known came
over me. I went in at last, and opened a book to some verses I had been
reading, which I shall never forget. Shall I tell you what they were?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"They contain my answer to your question," he said.

"What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?
Say, this struck you 'When life gropes
Feebly for the path where fell
Light last on the evening slopes,

"'One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my step from wrong;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.'"

"Victoria, can you guess who that friend is?"

She pressed his hand and smiled at him, but her eyes were wet.

"I have thought of it in that way, too, dear. But--but