e has ended.
The goal is won while yet the sun stands at full meridian--while yet
the feet are strong, and the heart brave for endurance or battle.
Heroes are ye, and this is my greeting!"

With eyes still closed, Jessie lay very still upon the bosom of this
dear friend. But oh, what a revelation of joy was in the sweet,
half-formed smile that arched her lips with beauty! Hendrickson
stood, still grasping her hand, and looking down into her pure,
tranquil face, with such a rapture pervading his soul, that he
seemed as if entering upon the felicities of heaven.

"This is even better than my hopes," he said, speaking at length,
but in a subdued voice.

Jessie opened her eyes, and now gazed at him calmly, but lovingly.
What a manly presence was his! How wonderfully he was
changed!--Thought, suffering, endurance, virtue, honor, had all been
at work upon his face, cutting away the earthly and the sensual,
until only the lines of that imperishable beauty which is of the
spirit, remained. Every well-remembered feature was there; but the
expression of his whole face was new.

A moment or two only did she look at him--but she read a volume in
love's history at a glance--then closed her eyes again, and, as she
did so, gave back to the hand that still held hers, an answering
pressure.

The long, long trial of faith, love and high religious principle was
over, and they were now standing at the open door of blessing.

And so the reward came at last, as come it always does, to the true,
the faithful, the pure, and the loving--if not in this world,
assuredly in the next--and the great error of their lives stood
corrected.

But what a lesson for the heart! Oh, is there a more fearful
consummation of error in the beginning of life than a wholly
discordant marriage! This mating of higher and lower natures--of
delicacy with coarseness--of sensuality with almost spiritual
refinement--of dove-like meekness with falcon cruelty--of the lamb
with the bear! It makes the very heart bleed to think of the undying
anguish that is all around us, springing from this most frightful
cause of misery!

In less than a month Paul Hendrickson again departed from B--, but
this time not alone, nor with his destination involved in mystery.
His second self went with him, and their faces were turned towards a
southern island, where the earth was as rich in blossom and verdure
as the bride's heart in undying love. Here his home had been for years;
an