wilight hour that
our already limited income must be shared with an unromantic creditor.
There was a little tightening of the lips, then of the arms, then of
those mutual heart cords entangled in their eternal root.

We were boarding then, three rooms in a family hotel, and when I
returned next day at evening I found everything--books, furniture,
piano--all moved to a room upon the topmost story. I was directed
thither by the smiling landlord, more enlightened than I, and I entered
with furtive misgivings in my soul and with visions of that spacious
Southern home before my rueful eyes.

But she was there, radiant and triumphant, still flushed with exercise
of hand and heart, viewing proudly her proof of a new axiom that two or
more bodies may occupy the same space at the selfsame time.

"I am so glad you didn't come before," she said. "I wanted to be all
settled before you saw it. This is just as good as we had before, and
only half the price. Isn't it cozy? And everything just fits. And we are
away from all the noise. And look at that lovely view. And now we can
pay off that horrid note. Aren't you glad?"

"But, Emmeline, my heart breaks to see you caged like this. It is noble
of you, just like you, but I cannot forgive myself that I have brought
you to this," said I, my voice trembling with pain and joy.

"Why, dear one, how can you speak like that? We have everything here,
and each other too, and we shall be caged together."

I kissed that girlish face again and blessed the gift of heaven,
murmuring only, in tones that could not be heard, "He setteth the
solitary in families," and as we went down together I wondered if that
sudden elevation had not brought us nearer heaven than we had been
below.

It was largely owing to this lion-hearted courage that I now found
myself swiftly borne towards the vacant pulpit which yawned in stately
expectation of its weekly candidate.

The invitation "to conduct divine services in St. Cuthbert's, whose
pulpit is now vacant," had come unsought from the kirk session of that
distant temple.

St. Cuthbert's was the stately cathedral of all adjoining
Presbyterianism. It was the pride and crown of a town which stood in
prosperous contentment upon the verge of cityhood. Its history was great
and honourable; its traditions warlike and evangelical; its people
intelligent and intense. Its vast area was famed for its throng of acute
and reflective hearers, almost every man of whom w