utable bitterness, seeking some
love long lost to it nor ever to be found again; but that the sea was
as it had been when God poured it forth--young and lusty and
passionate--the only thing in all the fleeting world immune from age
and death and desuetude.

'Twas strange enough; but I knew, thank God! when the rocking,
crooning sea took my heart as a harp in its hands, that all the sins
and errors of earth were of creative intention and most beautiful, as
are all the works of the God of us all. Nay, but, thinks I, the sins
of life are more lovely than the righteous accomplishments. Removed by
the starlit sky, wherein He dwells--removed because of its tender
distance and beauty and placidity, because of its compassion and
returning gift of faith, removed by the vast, feeling territory of
sensate waters, whereupon He walks, because they express, eternally,
His wrath and loving kindness--carried far away, in the quiet night, I
looked back, and I understood, as never before--nor can I ever hope to
know again--that God, being artist as we cannot be, had with the life
of the world woven threads of sin and error to make it a pattern of
supernal beauty, that His purpose might be fulfilled, His eyes
delighted.

And 'twas with the healing of night and starry sky and the soft
lullaby of the sea upon my spirit--'twas with this wide, clear vision
of life, the gift of understanding, as concerned its exigencies--that
I arose and went to my uncle....

* * * * *

I met Judith on the way: the maid was hid, waiting for me, in the deep
shadow of the lilacs and the perfume of them, which I shall never
forget, that bordered the gravelled path of our garden.

"You've come at last," says she. "He've been waiting for you--out
there in the dark."

"Judith!" says I.

She came confidingly close to me.

"I've a word to say to you, maid," says I.

"An' you're a true man?" she demanded.

"'Tis a word," says I, "that's between a man an' a maid. 'Tis nothing
more."

She held me off. "An' you're true," she demanded, "to them that have
loved you?"

"As may or may not appear," I answered.

"Ah, Dannie," she whispered, "I cannot doubt you!"

I remember the scent of the lilacs--I remember the dusk--the starlit
sky.

"I have a word," I repeated, "to say to you."

"An' what's that?" says she.

"'Tis that I wish a kiss," says I.

She put up her dear red lips.

"Ay," says I, "but 'tis a case