with
the very excess of joy. He felt as if there were something yet
needed to complete and secure it all. There was an urgency within
him, a longing to find some outlet for his feelings, he knew not
how--some expression and culmination of his happiness, he knew not
what.

Under his joyous demeanour a secret fire of restlessness began to
burn--an expectancy of something yet to come which should put the
touch of perfection on his life, He spoke of it to Athenais, as they
sat together, one summer evening, in a bower of jasmine, with their
boy playing at their feet. There had been music in the garden; but
now the singers and lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master
and mistress alone in the lingering twilight, tremulous with
inarticulate melody of unseen birds. There was a secret voice in the
hour seeking vainly for utterance--a word waiting to be spoken at
the centre of the charm.

"How deep is our happiness, my beloved!" said Hermas; "deeper than
the sea that slumbers yonder, below the city. And yet I feel it is
not quite full and perfect. There is a depth of joy that we have not
yet known--a repose of happiness that is still beyond us. What is
it? I have no superstitious fears, like the king who cast his
signet-ring into the sea because he dreaded that some secret
vengeance would fall on his unbroken good fortune. That was an idle
terror. But there is something that oppresses me like an invisible
burden. There is something still undone, unspoken, unfelt--something
that we need to complete everything. Have you not felt it, too? Can
you not lead me to it?"

"Yes," she answered, lifting her eyes to his face; "I, too, have
felt it, Hermas, this burden, this need, this unsatisfied longing. I
think I know what it means. It is gratitude--the language of the
heart, the music of happiness. There is no perfect joy without
gratitude. But we have never learned it, and the want of it troubles
us. It is like being dumb with a heart full of love. We must find
the word for it, and say it together. Then we shall be perfectly
joined in perfect joy. Come, my dear lord, let us take the boy with
us, and give thanks."

Hermas lifted the child in his arms, and turned with Athenais into
the depth of the garden. There was a dismantled shrine of some
forgotten fashion of worship half hidden among the luxuriant
flowers. A fallen image lay beside it, face downward in the grass.
They stood there, hand in hand, the boy drowsily resting o