y the day I was born, to be opened at my
wedding."

"Not at your wedding, my son, but the day you found the woman you
loved." Then, after a long pause, she added, shyly: "Shouldn't it be
opened now?"

"It'll keep," the young man grunted. "After lying for thirty years among
the cobwebs, a few more weeks or months or years, as the case may be,
won't hurt it. Besides, I don't expect to have any wedding. I'm merely
going to be married. Might as well let the strange woman have it."

[Sidenote: Old Wine]

Alden's father had, as he said, put away on the day he was born all the
wine that was then ready to be bottled. The baby girl had been welcomed
gladly, especially as she had her mother's eyes, but the day the second
Alden Marsh was born, the young father's joy had known no bounds. He had
gone, at dusk, to the pale little mother, and, holding her in his arms,
had told her about the wine.

"I've put it all away," he had said, "for the boy. He's to open it the
day he finds the woman he loves as I love you."

The shelf in the storeroom, where he had placed it, had never been
disturbed, though dust and cobwebs lay thickly upon it and Madame had
always prided herself upon her immaculate housekeeping. It grieved her
inexpressibly because Alden cared so little about it, and had for it,
apparently, no sentiment at all. To her it was sacred, like some rare
wine laid aside for communion, but, as she reflected, the boy's father
had died before he was much more than a child.

"Don't you remember your father at all?" asked Madame, with a sigh.

"I can't say that I do--that is, not before he died." The casket and the
gloom of mourning had made its own vivid impression upon the child's
sensitive mind. One moment stood out quite clearly, but he forebore to
say so. It was when his mother, with the tears raining down her face,
had lifted him in her arms and bade him look at the man who lay in the
casket, oh, so cold and still.

[Sidenote: The Passing of the Father]

"Say good-bye to Father, dear," she had sobbed. "Is Father gone away?"
he had asked, in childish terror, then she had strained him to her
heart, crying out: "Just for a little while! Oh, if I could only believe
it was for just a little while!"

The rest had faded into a mist of sadness that, for a long time, had not
even begun to lift. When he found his mother in tears, as he often did
after that, he went away quietly, knowing that she longed for "Father,"
who had gon