alled him in
from the porch where he sat reading Stuart Mill on Liberty.

If you form your own opinion of a man who might spend a livelong
morning,--an October morning, quivering with color, alive with light,
sweet with the breath of dropping pines, soft with the caress of a wind
that had filtered through miles of sunshine,--and that the morning of
the day before his wedding,--reading Stuart Mill on Liberty,--I cannot
help it.

Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us,--met her lover's eyes, stood a moment
with lifted lashes and bright cheeks,--crept with a quick, impulsive
movement into her mother's arms, kissed her, and floated away up the
stairs.

"It's a perfect fit," said Mrs. Bird; coming out with one corner of a
very dingy handkerchief--somebody had just used it to dust the Parian
vases--at her eyes.

And though, to be sure, it was none of my business, I caught myself
saying, under my breath,--

"It's a fit for life; for a _life_, Dr. Sharpe."

Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely. He was very much in love with the little
pink-and-white cloud that had just fluttered up the stairs. If it had
been drifting to him for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have
felt no doubt of the "fit."

Nor, I am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to him that evening after
the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain
little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net
behind her ears,--Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded off in the
colors of a pale apple-blossom,--up-turning her flushed and weary face.

"Put away the book, please, Myron."

Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious Affections), and looked for
a moment without speaking at the up-turned face.

Dr. Sharpe had spasms of distrusting himself amazingly; perhaps most men
have,--and ought to. His face grew grave just then. That little girl's
clear eyes shone upon him like the lights upon an altar. In very
unworthiness of soul he would have put the shoes from off his feet. The
ground on which he trod was holy.

When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper:--

"Harrie, are you afraid of me? I know I am not very good,"

And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the scarlet leaves upon her
hair, said softly, "How could I be afraid of you? It is _I_ who am not
good."

Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affections that
evening. All the time that the skies were fading, we saw them wandering
in and out amon