e let me speak. I cannot see you put away unconsidered----"

She lifted her eyes again. "O! I know what I'm putting away from me; a
life! a life wider, richer than I ever hoped to live. Mr. Fair, it's as
if a beautiful, great, strong ship were waiting to carry me across a
summer sea, and I couldn't go, just for want of the right passport--the
right heart! If I had that it might be ever so different. I have no
other ship ever to come in. I say all this only to save you from
speaking. The only thing lacking is lacking in me." She smiled a
compassionate despair. "It's not you nor your conditions--you know it's
none of those dear ones who love you so at home--it's only I that can't
qualify."

They looked at each other in reverent silence. Fair turned, plucked a
flower, and as if to it, said, "I know the passion of love is a true and
sacred thing. But love should never be all, or chiefly, a passion. The
love of a mother for her child, of brother and sister for each other,
however passionate, springs first from relationship and rises into
passion as a plant springs from its root into bloom. Why should not all
love do so? Why should only this, the most perilous kind, be made an
exception?"

"Because," softly interrupted Barbara, glad of a moment's refuge in
abstractions, "it belongs to the only relationship that comes by
choice!"

"Are passions ever the best choosers?" asked the gentle suitor. "Has
history told us so, or science, or scripture, or anybody but lovers and
romancers--and--Americans? Life--living and loving--is the greatest of
the arts, and the passions should be our tools, not our guides."

"I believe life _is_ an art to you, Mr. Fair; but to me it's a dreadful
battle." The speaker sank upon the stone, half rose again, and then sat
still.

"It hasn't scarred you badly," responded the lover. Then gravely: "Do
you not think we may find it worth the fight if we make passions our
chariot horses and never our charioteers?"

No answer came, though he waited. He picked another flower and asked:
"If you had a brother, have you the faintest doubt that you would love
him?"

"No," said Barbara, "I couldn't help but love him." She thrust away the
recollection of a certain railway journey talk, and then thought of her
father.

Fair dropped his voice. "If I did not know that I should not be here
to-day. Barbara, kinship is the only true root of all abiding love. We
cannot feel sure even of God's love until we call o