t the old spot where he had
listened to it so often? Could he hear her calling to him by his name,
the name he had buried irrecoverably in a foreign grave? For the first
time for many years he bent down his face upon his hands, and wept many
tears; not bitter ones, full of grief as they were. His mother was dead;
he had not wept for her till now.

Presently there came upon the summer silence the sound of a young,
clear, laughing voice, calling "Phebe;" and he lifted up his head to
look once more at the house. An old man, with silvery white hair was
pacing slowly to and fro on the upper terrace, and a slight girlish
figure was beside him. That was old Clifford, his enemy; but could that
girl be Hilda? A face looked out of one of the windows, smiling down
upon this young girl, which he knew again as Phebe Marlowe's. By and by
she came down to the terrace, with a tall, fine-looking young man
walking beside her; and all three, bidding farewell to the old man,
descended from terrace to terrace, becoming every minute more distinct
to his eyes. Yes, there was Phebe; and these others must be his girl
Hilda and his son Felix. They were near to him, every word they spoke
reached his ears, and penetrated to his heart. They seemed more
beautiful, more perfect than any young creatures he had ever beheld. He
listened to them unfastening the chain which secured the boat, and to
the creaking of the row-locks as they fitted the oars into them. It was
as if one of his own long-lost days was come back again to earth, when
he had sat where Felix was now sitting, with Felicita instead of Hilda
dipping her little white hand into the water. He had scarcely eyes for
Phebe; but he was conscious that she was there, for Hilda was speaking
to her in a low voice which just reached him. "See," she said, "that man
has one of my mother's books! And he is quite a common man!"

"As much a common man, perhaps, as I am a common woman," answered Phebe,
in a gentle though half-reproving tone.

As long as his eyes could see them they were fastened upon the receding
boat; and long after, he gazed in the direction in which they had gone.
He had had the passing glimpse he longed for into the Paradise he had
forfeited. This had been his place, appointed to him by God, where he
could have served God best, and served Him in as perfect gladness and
freedom as the earth gives to any of her children. What lot could have
been more blessed? The lines had fallen unto