quet of the full chord." Day after day, night after night, week
after week, month after month, the bliss of the home unfolded like
a rose of a thousand leaves. When a child came to them, a strong,
beautiful boy, worthy to be the heir of such a house, the heart of the
rose was filled with overflowing fragrance. Happiness was heaped upon
happiness. Every wish brought its own accomplishment. Wealth, honour,
beauty, peace, love--it was an abundance of felicity so great that the
soul of Hermas could hardly contain it.

Strangely enough, it began to press upon him, to trouble him with the
very excess of joy. He felt as if there were something yet needed to
complete and secure it all. There was an urgency within him, a longing
to find some outlet for his feelings, he knew not how--some expression
and culmination of his happiness, he knew not what.

Under his joyous demeanour a secret fire of restlessness began to
burn--an expectancy of something yet to come which should put the touch
of perfection on his life. He spoke of it to Athenais, as they sat
together, one summer evening, in a bower of jasmine, with their boy
playing at their feet. There had been music in the garden; but now the
singers and lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master and mistress
alone in the lingering twilight, tremulous with inarticulate melody of
unseen birds. There was a secret voice in the hour seeking vainly for
utterance a word waiting to be spoken.

"How deep is our happiness, my beloved!" said Hermas; "deeper than the
sea that slumbers yonder, below the city. And yet it is not quite full
and perfect. There is a depth of joy that we have not yet known--a
repose of happiness that is still beyond us. What is it? I have no
superstitions, like the king who cast his signet-ring into the sea
because he dreaded that some secret vengeance would fall on his unbroken
good fortune. That was an idle terror. But there is something that
oppresses me like an invisible burden. There is something still undone,
unspoken, unfelt--something that we need to complete everything. Have
you not felt it, too? Can you not lead me to it?"

"Yes," she answered, lifting her eyes to his face; "I, too, have felt
it, Hermas, this burden, this need, this unsatisfied longing. I think
I know what it means. It is gratitude--the language of the heart, the
music of happiness. There is no perfect joy without gratitude. But we
have never learned it, and the want of it troubles us