th a swelling note:

"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky ..."

A shock of attention ran through the watchers on the roof: Eleanor,
standing with her hands clasped lightly in front of her, her head thrown
back, her eyes lifted to the unplumbed deeps, was singing:

"The moon takes up the wondrous tale
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn--"

A window was thrown open in a dark garret below, and some one, unseen,
listened. Down in the street, two passers-by paused, and looked up. No
one spoke. The voice soared on--and ended:

"Forever singing as they shine...."

Maurice came to her side and caught her hand. There was a long sigh from
the little group. For several minutes no one spoke. Miss Moore wiped her
eyes; the baseball fan said, huskily, "My mother used to sing that"; the
widow touched Eleanor's shoulder. "My--my husband loved it," she said,
and her voice broke.

The garret window slammed down; the two people in the street vanished in
the darkness. The little party on the roof melted away; they climbed
through the scuttle, forgetting to joke, but saying to each other, in
lowered voices: "Would you have _believed_ it?" "How wonderful!" And to
Eleanor, rather humbly: "It was beautiful, Mrs. Curtis!"

In their own room, Maurice took his wife in his arms and kissed her. "I
am going to tell her," he said to himself, calmly. The overwhelming
grandeur of the heavens had washed him clean of fear, clean even of
shame, and left him impassioned with Beauty and Law, which two are
Truth. "I will tell her," he said.

Eleanor had sung without self-consciousness; but now, when they were
back again in their room--so stifling after those spaces between the
worlds!--self-consciousness flooded in: "I suppose it was queer?" she
said.

"It was perfect," Maurice said; he was very pale.

"I wanted to do something that they would like, and I thought they might
like a hymn? Some of them said they did. But if you liked it, that is
all I want."

"I loved it." His heart was pounding in his throat.... "Eleanor" (he
could hardly see that terrible path among the stars, but he stumbled
upward), "Eleanor, I'm not good enough for you."

"Not good enough? For _me_?" She laughed at such absurdity. He was
sitting down, his elbow on his knee, his head in his hand. She came and
knelt beside him. "If you are