and softly, and with eyes looking far away--

'In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.'

There was no benediction--there seemed no need; and the men went quietly
out. But over and over again the voice kept singing in my ears and in
my heart, 'We shall meet on that beautiful shore.' And after the
sleigh-loads of men had gone and left the street empty, as I stood with
Craig in the radiant moonlight that made the great mountains about
come near us, from Sandy's sleigh we heard in the distance Baptiste's
French-English song; but the song that floated down with the sound of
the bells from the miners' sleigh was--

'We shall meet on that beautiful shore.'

'Poor old Shaw!' said Craig softly.

When the last sound had died away I turned to him and said--

'You have won your fight.'

'We have won our fight; I was beaten,' he replied quickly, offering
me his hand. Then, taking off his cap, and looking up beyond the
mountain-tops and the silent stars, he added softly, 'Our fight, but His
victory.'

And, thinking it all over, I could not say but perhaps he was right.

CHAPTER IV

MRS. MAVOR'S STORY

The days that followed the Black Rock Christmas were anxious days and
weary, but not for the brightest of my life would I change them now;
for, as after the burning heat or rocking storm the dying day lies
beautiful in the tender glow of the evening, so these days have lost
their weariness and lie bathed in a misty glory. The years that bring us
many ills, and that pass so stormfully over us, bear away with them the
ugliness, the weariness, the pain that are theirs, but the beauty, the
sweetness, the rest they leave untouched, for these are eternal. As
the mountains, that near at hand stand jagged and scarred, in the far
distance repose in their soft robes of purple haze, so the rough present
fades into the past, soft and sweet and beautiful.

I have set myself to recall the pain and anxiety of those days and
nights when we waited in fear for the turn of the fever, but I can only
think of the patience and gentleness and courage of her who stood beside
me, bearing more than half my burden. And while I can see the face
of Leslie Graeme, ghastly or flushed, and hear his low moaning or the
broken words of his delirium, I think chiefly of the bright face bending
over him, and of the cool, firm, swift-moving hands that soothed and
smoothed and rested, and the voice, like the soft