ar to be parted from her that way. But if I'd put a hardship or
a burden on her and she'd died under it, I'd never be able to look my
own soul in the face.'

"That's the way he looked at it, and nothin' could ever make him
change his mind. I reckon the doctor's way o' lovin' was somethin'
like Hamilton Schuyler's."

* * * * *

With these words Aunt Jane closed the treasure-chest of memory and
walked briskly away to look after the welfare of the tulips and
hyacinths.

A little story of a great love! And as I pondered it, the country
doctor became a knight of a finer chivalry than that which once
stirred the blood under a coat of mail, or guided a lance-thrust to an
enemy's heart. In every man's soul there is a field of valor, lonely,
perhaps unknown; and he is the true knight who enters the lists
against himself and strikes down every impulse of man's nature that
would harm the woman he loves. And how rich the guerdon of such a
victory, and the recompense of the beloved one for whose sake he
strives and conquers!

The pitying world looks on and measures the unwed lovers' loss, but
who can measure their gain? Theirs is the bliss which Psyche had
before she lit the fatal lamp. They hold forever in their hearts "the
consecration and the poet's dream"; and, undimmed by disillusionment,
the mirage of youthful love hovers over each solitary path, lighting
the twilight of age, the night of death and melting at last into the
dawn of heaven's unending day.

VII

THE REFORMATION OF SAM AMOS

[Illustration]

VII

THE REFORMATION OF SAM AMOS

All day the land had lain dreamily under an enchantment soon to be
broken by the rude counter-spells of the coming winter.

A frost so light that it was hardly more than a cold dew had rested
that morning on the early chrysanthemums and late roses; but the wind
that shook the leaves from the crimson maples was a south wind; the
midday sun held the tropic warmth of August, and over the brightening
hills lay a tender, purple haze. Summer was dead, but its gentle ghost
had come back to the earth, and it was Indian summer, the season that
has no name or place in any calendar but the poet's. The sun had set,
and the mist that veiled the horizon had caught its last rays, holding
the light lingeringly, fondly, in its folds and spreading it far to
the north and south in a soft splendor of color that no other season
can show. Not pink, not