whom I had never felt so utterly alone. I could not bear to see
them displaced by Ann's garden-belles, tempting as the latter would have
been at any other moment. She saw my indifference to her offer. I knew
she saw it working in my face. I attempted to apologize for my
preference, but she did not understand me; so I blurted out my thought,
awkwardly enough, saying,--

"Yours are beautiful; but God made these, you know,--and--and--I like
them best."

She looked down upon me gravely, pityingly, smiling, too, with a
tenderness which was neither grave nor pitying. I have seen
long-visioned people look with just that expression at the eyes of the
short-sighted, on the latter's confessing their inability to detect an
object at no great distance.

"_He made them all_," she said; and her words were an ascription of
praise.

They come to me often now. They bid me look farther and see more. They
tell me how _mine_ and _thine_ have no place in this world of _His_.
False distinctions shrink away from the light of the old woman's clearer
faith; I see how the ablest workers are but instruments in higher
hands,--how science, culture, inspiration itself, are but gifts to be
laid on His altar.

I need scarcely say that I at once found room for Ann's flowers in my
hand, as for her lesson in my heart. Some of the former are pressed and
laid away as a sacred memento, and something of the latter is treasured
up among good seed sown by the way-side.

I would gladly have lingered longer in this little nook, into which I
seemed to have been drifted by chance; but my time was up,--I had a mile
or two to walk over the fields in the direction of the railway,--my
friends were to meet me at Stratford. Should I miss the train this time,
my philosophy might fail me as signally as that of the above-mentioned
furniture-dealer failed him.

A few hours after I bade my old friend farewell, I was at my
destination. Millions have shared my experiences at the tomb of the
great poet. Everybody is familiar with William Shakspeare and
Stratford-on-Avon, but I hug the thought that nobody but I knows
anything about Ann Harris and Honeybourne.

* * * * *

I have dwelt upon an occasion in which the humble office of a guide
resulted in companionship, friendship, instruction. A brief sojourn in
Alpine regions has furnished me with a similar reminiscence.

We were setting forth for a day's ride across the Tete-Noire. Our pa