le rock rising from the turf, the silent
pool.

XXXIX

A Friend--The Gate of Life

Hugh was staying in the country with his mother. It was a bright
morning in the late summer, and he had just walked out on to the little
gravel-sweep before the house, which commanded a view of a pleasant
wooded valley with a stream running through; it was one of those fresh
days, with a light breeze rustling in the trees, when it seemed good to
be alive; rain had fallen in the night, and had washed the dust of a
long drought off the trees; some soft aerial pigment seemed mingled
with the air, lending a rich lustre to everything; the small woods on
the hillside opposite had a mellow colour, and the pastures between
were of radiant and transparent freshness; the little gusts whirled
over the woodland, turning the under sides of the leaves up, and
brightening the whole with a dash of lighter green.

Just at this moment a telegram was put into Hugh's hand, announcing the
sudden death of an elderly lady, who had been a good friend to him for
over twenty years. Death seemed to be everywhere about him, and the
bright scene suddenly assumed an almost heartless aspect of mirth; but
he put the thought from him, and strove rather to feel that life and
death rejoiced together.

Later in the day he heard more particulars. His friend was a wealthy
woman who had lived a very quiet life for many years in a pleasant
country-house. She had often spoken to Hugh of her fear of a long and
tedious illness, wearing alike to both the sufferer and those in
attendance, when the mind may become fretful, fearful, and impatient in
the last scene, just when one most desires that the latest memories of
one's life may be cheerful, brave, and serene. Her prayer had been
very tenderly answered; she had been ailing of late; but she had been
sitting talking in her drawing-room the day before, to a quiet family
group, when she had been seized with a sudden faintness, and had died
gently, in a few minutes, smiling palely, and probably not even knowing
that she was in any sort of danger.

Hugh spent the day mostly in solitude, and retraced in tender thought
the stages of their long friendship. His friend had been a woman of
strong and marked individuality, who had loved life, and had made many
loyal friends. She was intensely, almost morbidly, aware of the
suffering of the world, especially of animals; and Hugh remembered how
she had once told him that