Kate and I ran away from Laura C.'s
party and came over here to ask you to help us out of our stupidity. I
remember it all,--how you puzzled me by telling me that every position
in life had its sameness. Ah, Uncle John, you forgot one thing when
you told me that nothing satisfied us in this world." And Alice looked
up from her little stool, where she sat before the fire at Uncle
John's feet, with the flush of deep feeling coloring her cheeks and
the dewy light of happiness in her eyes.

"And that one thing, Alice?"

"You are lying in wait for my answer, to give it that smile that I
hate,--it is so unbelieving and so sad; I will not have you wear it on
your face to-night, Uncle John. You cannot, if I speak my whole heart
out. And why should I not, before you and Kate,--Kate, who is like my
other self, and you, dear Uncle John, who, ever since the time we were
talking about, have been so much to me? Do you know, I never told
anybody before? but all you said that night never left me. I thought
of it so much! Was it true that life was so dissatisfying? You who had
tried so thoroughly, who had gone through such a life of adventure,
had seemed to me really to live, was all as flat and unprofitable to
you as one of our tiresome parties or morning calls? And something in
my own heart told me it was true, something that haunted me all
through my greatest enjoyments, through my studies that I took up
then, and which have been to me, oh, Uncle John, so much more than
ever I expected they would be! Yes, through all that I believed you,
believed you till now, believed you till I knew Herbert."

"And has Herbert told you better?"

"Uncle John, you do not know how the whole of life is glorified for
me,--glorified by his love. I do not deserve it; all I can do is to
return it ten-fold; but this I know, that, while I keep it, there can
be nothing tame or dull,--life, everything, is gilded by my own
happiness."

"And if you lose it?"

The flush on her face fell. "I should be miserable!--I should not--no,
I could not live any longer!"

"Alice," said Uncle John, his face losing its half-mocking smile with
which he had been watching her eager countenance, "Alice, did you know
that I had been married?"

We started. "Married? No. How was it, and when?"

"It is no matter now, my girls. Some time I may tell you about it. I
should not have spoken of it now, but that I know my little Alice
would not believe a word I am going to tell h