Hilbrook's life, and in the funeral sermon that he preached he urged
upon his hearers the necessity of keeping themselves alive through some
relation to the undying frame of things, which they could do only by
cherishing earthly ties; and when these were snapped in the removal of
their objects, by attaching the broken threads through an effort of the
will to yet other objects: the world could furnish these inexhaustibly.
He touched delicately upon the peculiarities, the eccentricities, of the
deceased, and he did cordial justice to his gentleness, his blameless,
harmless life, his heroism on the battlefields of his country. He
declared that he would not be the one to deny an inner piety, and
certainly not a steadfast courage, in Hilbrook's acceptance of whatever
his sincere doubts implied.

The sermon apparently made a strong impression on all who heard it. Mrs.
Ewbert was afraid that it was rather abstruse in certain passages, but
she felt sure that all the university people would appreciate these. The
university people, to testify their respect for their founder, had come
in a body to the obsequies of his kinsman; and Mrs. Ewbert augured the
best things for her husband's future usefulness from their presence.

THE MAGIC OF A VOICE.

I.

There was a full moon, and Langbourne walked about the town, unable to
come into the hotel and go to bed. The deep yards of the houses gave out
the scent of syringas and June roses; the light of lamps came through
the fragrant bushes from the open doors and windows, with the sound of
playing and singing and bursts of young laughter. Where the houses stood
near the street, he could see people lounging on the thresholds, and
their heads silhouetted against the luminous interiors. Other houses,
both those which stood further back and those that stood nearer, were
dark and still, and to these he attributed the happiness of love in
fruition, safe from unrest and longing.

His own heart was tenderly oppressed, not with desire, but with the
memory of desire. It was almost as if in his faded melancholy he were
sorry for the disappointment of some one else.

At last he turned and walked back through the streets of dwellings to
the business centre of the town, where a gush of light came from the
veranda of his hotel, and the druggist's window cast purple and yellow
blurs out upon the footway. The other stores were shut, and he alone
seemed to be abroad. The church clock struck