hat grand
world, I went into another still more beautiful, and on I went rising
out of one beautiful world into another far superior till I reached a
condition that human language cannot convey the blissful state of the
soul in me. Oh, the happiness I then realized. I shall never forget. My
husband, in speaking of the piece Penloe played, said: 'That music was
never composed on earth, it was born in heaven,' Mr. Herne heard my
husband make that remark, and said, 'In order to play that kind of
music, you have got to live in the same world as Penloe does. That is
how it has its birth.'"

It is true, as Mrs. French told her friend, that after the music had
lost some of its power over her she realized that Penloe had left the
room. The piano being near the door, which was open, and no one sitting
between the door and the piano, when Penloe ceased playing he quietly
left the room and sat in a chair on the porch. About five minutes later,
a soft footstep was heard on the porch and the sound of a light rustle
of a dress, for Stella had taken a seat beside Penloe. His performance
at the piano had stirred the dear girl's nature to its greatest depths
and also had scaled its lofty heights. On that porch, gazing at the
grand canopy of the heavens, those two souls listened to such strains of
music as only the purified hear.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A VISIT FROM BARKER AND BROOKES.

About ten o'clock the next morning after the party, Mr. Herne was in the
front yard, superintending some work, when he saw a buggy coming towards
his house and he recognized the occupants as being Mr. Herbert Barker
and Mr. Stanley Brookes, of Roseland. When the team stopped in front of
the house. Mr. Herne was there to receive the two gentlemen.

After shaking hands and exchanging a few pleasant words, Mr. Barker
asked: "Are Penloe and Stella here?"

Mr. Herne said: "Yes, they are, come in, gentlemen," and gave them seats
in the parlor, saying, "You had better stay to dinner, and I will have a
man take care of your team," an invitation which they gladly accepted.
Mr. Herne entered the sitting-room to tell Penloe and Stella that Barker
and Brookes were in the parlor waiting to see them. Since those two
gentlemen had become Stella's co-workers for sex reform consequently
they had seen much of each other, and had come to a mutual understanding
that they would lay aside all formalities and act as brother and sister;
therefore, instead of addressing e