d a few there are who tell
us that they live there always, listening to the voice of God; but
these are old and worn with journeying--men and women who have outlived
passions and ambitions and the fire heats of love, and who now, girt
about with memories, stand face to face with the sphinx Eternity.

But John Niel was no chicken, nor very likely to fall in love with the
first pretty face he met. He had once, years ago, gone through that
melancholy stage, and there, he thought, was an end of it. Moreover, if
Bessie attracted him, so did Jess in a different way. Before he had
been a week in the house he came to the conclusion that Jess was the
strangest woman he had ever met, and in her own fashion one of the most
attractive. Her very impassiveness added to her charm; for who is there
in this world who is not eager to learn a secret? To him Jess was
a riddle of which he did not know the key. That she was clever and
well-informed he soon discovered from her rare remarks; that she could
sing like an angel he also knew; but what was the mainspring of her
mind--round what axis did it revolve--this was the puzzle. Clearly
enough it was not like most women's, least of all like that of happy,
healthy, plain-sailing Bessie. So curious did he become to fathom these
mysteries that he took every opportunity to associate with her, and,
when he had time, would even go out with her on her sketching, or rather
flower-painting, expeditions. On these occasions she would sometimes
begin to talk, but it was always about books, or England or some
intellectual question. She never spoke of herself.

Yet it soon became evident to John that she liked his society, and
missed him when he did not come. It never occurred to him what a boon
it was to a girl of considerable intellectual attainments, and still
greater intellectual capacities and aspirations, to be thrown for the
first time into the society of a cultivated and intelligent gentleman.
John Niel was no empty-headed, one-sided individual. He had both read
and thought, and even written a little, and in him Jess found a mind
which, though of an inferior stamp, was more or less kindred to her own.
Although he did not understand her she understood him, and at last, had
he but known it, there rose a far-off dawning light upon the twilight
of her heart that thrilled and changed it as the first faint rays of
morning thrill and change the darkness of the night. What if she should
learn to love thi