ying isn't true for him, and never minded anything more. In
spite of blood and tears and agony, he's always held up the one
standard, and, I'm thinking, has always pointed to the hardest way to
reach it. The way has been so hard that many have never reached it at
all, and those who have--I've not seen that they are the happiest or
the kindest, nor that they are loved the most.

"In the same place, too, there is always a doctor, whose business it is
to watch over the body. If you have a broken leg or a broken arm, or a
fever, he can set you right again. Blind eyes can be made to see, and
deaf ears made to hear, but, Lady, who is there to care about a broken
heart?

"I have taken in my pedler's pack the things that women need, because
't is women, mostly, who bear the heartaches of the world, and I come
closer to them so. What you say I have done for you, I have done for
many more. I'm trying to make the world a bit easier for all women
because a woman gave me life. And because I love another woman in
another way," he added, his voice breaking, "I'll be trudging on
to-morrow alone, though 't would be easier, I'm thinking, to linger
here."

Evelina's heart leaped with a throb of the old pain. "Tell me about
her," she said, because it seemed the only thing to say.

"The woman I love," answered the Piper, "is not for me. She'd never be
thinking of stooping to such as I, and I'd not be insulting her by
asking. She's very proud, but she could be tender if she chose, and
she's the bravest soul I ever knew--so brave that she fears neither
death nor life, though life itself has not been kind.

"Her little feet have been set upon the rough pathways, almost since
the beginning, and her hands catch at my heart-strings, they are so
frail. They're fluttering always like frightened birds, and the
fluttering is in her voice, too."

"And her face?"

"Ah, but I've dreamed of her face! I've thought it was noble beyond
all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled
with compassion for all the world. So brave, so true, so tender it
might be that I'm thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for
me, that I'd never be asking more."

"Why haven't you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an
awkward pause. "Is she only a dream-woman?"

"Nay, she's not a dream-woman. She lives and breathes as dreams never
do, but she hides her face because she is so beautiful. She veils her
face