ne and glow, and
sparkle, and vanish. For him, he cared for nothing but science--nothing
that did not promise one day to yield up its kernel to the seeker. To
him science stood for truth, and for truth in the inward parts stood
obedience to the laws of Nature. If he was one of a poor race, he would
rise above his fellows by being good to them in their misery; while for
himself he would confess to no misery. Let the laws of Nature
work--eyeless and heartless as the whirlwind; he would live his life, be
himself, be Nature, and depart without a murmur. No scratch on the face
of time, insignificant even as the pressure of a fern-leaf upon coal,
should tell that he had ever thought his fate hard. He would do his
endeavor and die and return to nothing--not then more dumb of complaint
than now. Such had been for years his stern philosophy, and why should
it now trouble him that a woman thought differently? Did the sound of
faith from such lips, the look of hope in such eyes, stir any thing out
of sight in his heart? Was it for a moment as if the corner of a veil
were lifted, the lower edge of a mist, and he saw something fair beyond?
Came there a little glow and flutter out of the old time? "All forget,"
he said to himself. "I too have forgotten. Why should not Nature forget?
Why should I be fooled any more? Is it not enough?"

Yet as he sat gazing, in the broad light of day, through the cottage
window, across whose panes waved the little red bells of the common
fuchsia, something that had nothing to do with science and yet _was_,
seemed to linger and hover over the little garden--something from the
very depths of loveliest folly. Was it the refrain of an old song? or
the smell of withered rose leaves? or was there indeed a kind of light
such as never was on sea or shore?

Whatever it was, it was out of the midst of it the voice of the lady
seemed to come--a clear musical voice in common speech, but now veiled
and trembling, as if it brooded hearkening over the words it uttered:

"I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great Death:
The dead shall look me through and through.

"Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all."

She ceased, and the silence was like that which follows sweet music.

"Ah! you think of your father!" he hazarded, and hoped ind