hed that his wife were there to share his
impression of distinction in Hilbrook's presence.

He turned at Ewbert's cheerful hail, and after a moment of apparent
uncertainty as to who he was, he came down the walk of broken brick and
opened the gate to his visitor.

"I was just out, looking round at the old things," he said, with an
effort of apology. "This sort of weather is apt to make fools of us. It
gets into our heads, and before we know we feel as if we had something
to do with the season."

"Perhaps we have," said the minister. "The spring is in us, too."

The old man shook his head. "It was once, when we were children; now
there's what we remember of it. We like to make believe about
it,--that's natural; and it's natural we should make believe that there
is going to be a spring for us somewhere else like what we see for the
grass and bushes, here, every year; but I guess not. A tree puts out its
leaves every spring; but by and by the tree dies, and then it doesn't
put out its leaves any more."

"I see what you mean," said Ewbert, "and I allow that there is no real
analogy between our life and that of the grass and bushes; yet somehow I
feel strengthened in my belief in the hereafter by each renewal of the
earth's life. It isn't a proof, it isn't a promise; but it's a
suggestion, an intimation."

They were in the midst of a great question, and they sat down on the
decaying doorstep to have it out; Hilbrook having gone in for his hat
and come out again, with its soft wide brim shading his thin face,
frosted with half a week's beard.

"But character," the minister urged at a certain point,--"what becomes
of character? You may suppose that life can be lavished by its Origin in
the immeasurable superabundance which we see in nature. But
character,--that is a different thing; that cannot die."

"The beasts that perish have character; my old dog had. Some are good
and some bad; they're kind and they're ugly."

"Ah, excuse me! That isn't character; that's temperament. Men have
temperament, too; but the beasts haven't character. Doesn't that fact
prove something,--or no, not prove, but give us some reasonable
expectation of a hereafter?"

Hilbrook did not say anything for a moment. He broke a bit of fragrant
spray from the flowering currant--which guarded the doorway on his side
of the steps; Ewbert sat next the Spanish willow--and softly twisted the
stem between his thumb and finger.

"Ever hear how I came