he arm of Mara
and started up toward the brown house.

The air was soft and balmy, and though the moon by which the troth of
Mara and Moses had been plighted had waned into the latest hours of the
night, still a thousand stars were lying in twinkling brightness,
reflected from the undulating waves all around them, and the tide, as it
rose and fell, made a sound as gentle and soft as the respiration of a
peaceful sleeper.

"Well, Mara," said Sally, after an interval of silence, "all has come
out right. You see that it was you whom he loved. What a lucky thing
for me that I am made so heartless, or I might not be as glad as I am."

"You are not heartless, Sally," said Mara; "it's the enchanted princess
asleep; the right one hasn't come to waken her."

"Maybe so," said Sally, with her old light laugh. "If I only were sure
he would make you happy now,--half as happy as you deserve,--I'd forgive
him his share of this summer's mischief. The fault was just half mine,
you see, for I witched with him. I confess it. I have my own little
spider-webs for these great lordly flies, and I like to hear them buzz."

"Take care, Sally; never do it again, or the spider-web may get round
you," said Mara.

"Never fear me," said Sally. "But, Mara, I wish I felt sure that Moses
could make you happy. Do you really, now, when you think seriously, feel
as if he would?"

"I never thought seriously about it," said Mara; "but I know he needs
me; that I can do for him what no one else can. I have always felt all
my life that he was to be mine; that he was sent to me, ordained for me
to care for and to love."

"You are well mated," said Sally. "He wants to be loved very much, and
you want to love. There's the active and passive voice, as they used to
say at Miss Plucher's. But yet in your natures you are opposite as any
two could well be."

Mara felt that there was in these chance words of Sally more than she
perceived. No one could feel as intensely as she could that the mind and
heart so dear to her were yet, as to all that was most vital and real in
her inner life, unsympathizing. To her the spiritual world was a
reality; God an ever-present consciousness; and the line of this present
life seemed so to melt and lose itself in the anticipation of a future
and brighter one, that it was impossible for her to speak intimately and
not unconsciously to betray the fact. To him there was only the life of
this world: there was no present God; an