the hall, a walk with him or a sail; and always, whether at
home or abroad, the constant accompaniment of his suggestions, his
fault-findings, his teachings, his teasings, his grumblings, his
laughter and merry nonsense, the whole made bearable--nay, even
pleasant--by the affection that lay underneath. Anne Douglas's nature
was faithful to an extraordinary degree, faithful to its promises, its
duties, its love; but it was an intuitive faithfulness, which never
thought about itself at all. Those persons who are in the habit of
explaining voluminously to themselves and everybody else the lines of
argument, the struggles, and triumphant conclusions reached by their
various virtues, would have considered this girl's mind but a poor dull
thing, for Anne never analyzed herself at all. She had never lived for
herself or in herself, and it was that which gave the tinge of coldness
that was noticed in her. For warm-heartedness generally begins at home,
and those who are warm to others are warmer to themselves; it is but the
overflow.

Meantime young Pronando, sailing southward, felt his spirits rise with
every shining mile. Loneliness is crowded out of the mind of the one who
goes by the myriad images of travel; it is the one who stays who
suffers. But there was much to be done at the Agency. The boys grew out
of their clothes, the old furniture fell to pieces, and the father
seemed more lost to the present with every day and hour. He gave less
and less attention to the wants of the household, and at last Anne and
Miss Lois together managed everything without troubling him even by a
question. For strange patience have loving women ever had with dreamers
like William Douglas--men who, viewed by the eyes of the world, are
useless and incompetent; tears are shed over their graves oftentimes
long after the successful are forgotten. For personally there is a
sweetness and gentleness in their natures which make them very dear to
the women who love them. The successful man, perhaps, would not care for
such love, which is half devotion, half protection; the successful man
wishes to domineer. But as he grows old he notices that Jane is always
quiet when the peach-trees are in bloom, and that gray-haired sister
Catherine always bends down her head and weeps silently whenever the
choir sings "Rockingham"; and then he remembers who it was that died
when the peach-trees showed their blossoms, and who it was who went
about humming "Rockingham