rowing
together. There is a double life in it, and the second life, the added
life, dominates the other. The stock becomes a kind of animate soil for
the graft to grow in."

Presently the road dipped into a little valley and rose again, breasting
the slope of a wooded hill which thrust itself out from the steeper
flank of the mountain-range. Down the hill-side a song floated to meet
us--that most noble lyric of old Robert Herrick:

Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.

It was a girl's voice, fresh and clear, with a note of tenderness in it
that thrilled me. Keene's pace quickened. And soon the singer came in
sight, stepping lightly down the road, a shape of slender whiteness on
the background of gathering night. She was beautiful even in that dim
light, with brown eyes and hair, and a face that seemed to breathe
purity and trust. Yet there was a trace of anxiety in it, or so I
fancied, that gave it an appealing charm.

"You have come at last, Edward," she cried, running forward and putting
her hand in his. "It is late. You have been out all day; I began to be
afraid."

"Not too late," he answered; "there was no need for fear, Dorothy. I
am not alone, you see." And keeping her hand, he introduced me to the
daughter of Master Ward.

It was easy to guess the relation between these two young people who
walked beside me in the dusk. It needed no words to say that they were
lovers. Yet it would have needed many words to define the sense, that
came to me gradually, of something singular in the tie that bound
them together. On his part there was a certain tone of half-playful
condescension toward her such as one might use to a lovely child, which
seemed to match but ill with her unconscious attitude of watchful care,
of tender solicitude for him--almost like the manner of an elder sister.
Lovers they surely were, and acknowledged lovers, for their frankness of
demeanour sought no concealment; but I felt that there must be

A little rift within the lute,

though neither of them might know it. Each one's thought of the other
was different from the other's thought of self. There could not be a
complete understanding, a perfect accord. What was the secret, of which
each knew half, but not the other half?

Thus, with steps that kept time, but with thoughts how wide apart, we
came to the door of the school. A warm flood of ligh