and of consciously graceful, captivating vivacity. The
miserable father was, however, fascinated; he gazed and gazed until
his eyes overflowed, and his hands trembled, and the paper fell with a
rustle to the floor.

Joan lifted it and looked at her husband. His eyes were shut, he was
sobbing inwardly as punished children sob in sleep. She spoke to him,
and he opened his eyes and pointed to the paper. Then Joan met the
same well-beloved face. The mother's cheeks burned red and redder, her
eyes flashed, she straightened out every crease, as if the pictured
satin and lace had been real; and then turning to the printed page,
she read aloud every word of adulation.

They had talked together of the men and women drowned within sight of
land that morning, but here was their only child dancing in sight of
eternal death, and they could not say a word to each other about her.
For it must be remembered that these simple, God-fearing fisher-folk
had been strictly and straitly reared in a creed which regarded
dancing as one of the deadly sins. They honestly believed that there
was but a step between their darling and eternal death, and if she
should take that step while dancing! To have known that she was on the
ship which had just gone to pieces on the rocks would not have made
them so heart-sick. Their very souls shivered as they thought of her.
As for John, he could find only those two words that spring
instinctively to every soul in trouble, "O God!"

But he motioned Joan to take the paper away, and Joan took it into
the room which was still called "Denas' room." She kissed the pictured
face, the hair and eyes and mouth, the lifted arms, the slender
throat. She could not bear to crush the paper together; she opened a
drawer and laid it as gently within as if she had been putting her
baby in its coffin. At this hour there was no anger in her heart;
there was even a little motherly pride in her child's beauty and grace
and cleverness. At this extremity of ill-doing she did not altogether
blame Denas. She was certain that before Denas danced, some one had
somehow persuaded the girl that it was not wicked to dance. "Denas do
have principles," she said stiffly, "and the man do not live who can
make her do wickedly if she do think it be wicked."

She looked with a sad affection around the little room. How lonely it
was! Yes, it is the living who desert us that make lonely rooms, and
not the dead. We know the dead will never come b