n--considering."

"Considering?"

"What they may have to put up with. It is easy to see faults in others.
I have sometimes met with people who should see faults in themselves.
They are rather uncommon, though."

"I am sure Basil Stanhope will be miserable all his life. He will break
his heart, I do believe."

"Not so. A good heart is hard to break, it grows strong in trouble.
Basil Stanhope's body will fail long before his heart does; and even so
an end must come to life, and after that peace or what God wills."

This scant sympathy Ethel found to be the usual tone among her
acquaintances. St. Jude's got a new rector and a new idol, and the
Stanhope affair was relegated to the limbo of things "it was proper to
forget."

So the weeks of the long winter went by, and Ethel in the joy and hope
of her own love-life naturally put out of her mind the sorrow of lives
she could no longer help or influence. Indeed, as to Dora, there were
frequent reports of her marvelous social success in Paris; and Ethel
did not doubt Stanhope had found some everlasting gospel of holy work to
comfort his desolation. And then also

"Each day brings its petty dust,
Our soon-choked souls to fill;
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will."

One evening when May with heavy clouds and slant rains was making the
city as miserable as possible, Ethel had a caller. His card bore a name
quite unknown, and his appearance gave no clew to his identity.

"Mr. Edmonds?" she said interrogatively.

"Are you Miss Ethel Rawdon?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Mr. Basil Stanhope told me to put this parcel in your hands."

"Oh, Mr. Stanhope! I am glad to hear from him. Where is he now?"

"We buried him yesterday. He died last Sunday as the bells were ringing
for church--pneumonia, miss. While reading the ser-vice over a poor
young man he had nursed many weeks he took cold. The poor will miss him
sorely."

"DEAD!" She looked aghast at the speaker, and again ejaculated the
pitiful, astounding word.

"Good evening, miss. I promised him to return at once to the work he
left me to do." And he quietly departed, leaving Ethel standing with the
parcel in her hands. She ran upstairs and locked it away. Just then she
could not bear to open it.

"And it is hardly twelve months since he was married," she sobbed. "Oh,
Ruth, Ruth, it is too cruel!"

"Dear," answered Ruth, "there is no death to such a man as Basil
Stanhope."

"He was s