riage. They
lived on their farm, two simple-minded old people, spending the
evening of their lives in quiet happiness; but the place was dreary,
remote from any town or neighbours. She had found it pleasant when
her husband was with her and the two took long rambles, or spent the
day under the trees, reading and talking, but how could she endure it
alone? rising with the birds to an early breakfast, then an
interminable day stretching before her, the long afternoon of silence
broken only by the click of Aunt Patty's knitting-needles, the
ticking of the old clock, and the hum of the bees; for these old
people had lived too long in quiet on these silent hills to make much
conversation. She could not see herself going through the same
monotonous round as each long day dragged its slow length, while
miles stretched between her and her beloved, toiling on in the
distant city. The dreary separation--that was the hard part of it,
after all.

It was just two years since Frank Vincent brought home his bride. He
had succeeded in securing rooms in a pleasant boarding-house in one
of the wide, airy streets of the city; he felt justified in going to
the utmost of his means in providing an attractive home; for his
Faith had been delicately reared by a wealthy uncle who had frowned
upon the love-making of the young bookkeeper, handsome, intelligent,
and with unblemished reputation though he was, and held a good
position in one of the largest and oldest firms in the city. The
uncle had more ambitious plans for his favourite niece. He did not
forbid the marriage, but gave Faith to understand that if she
persisted in marrying a poor man, when a good half million awaited
her acceptance, she did it at her own peril, not a penny of his
should go to eke out the scanty living of a poor clerk. The end of
it all was a quiet wedding one morning in her uncle's parlour, and a
hasty flitting away of the young couple--away from ominous looks and
cold politeness, out into their own bright world, where no dark
shadows in the shape of grim mercenary uncles should ever cross their
path.

It was not without many misgivings that the young husband conducted
his wife to her apartments, for neat and pretty though they were,
they were in marked contrast with the roomy, elegant mansion where
she had spent her life, and so was the noisy, dusty city with the
beautiful, quiet old town where trees and flowers and birds and pure
air and room to breathe in, made