actor in the world's progress, and a
self-supporting citizen. He tried to fire himself with this sacrifice.
At any rate, in order to save his body he had lost his soul--that is,
his spiritual soul. "Is not the life more than the meat?" In the
recesses of his artist's mind a voice which he had strangled tried to
tell him that he had done his soul a great, great wrong. Nevertheless, a
solemn feeling of responsibility and of manhood came upon him, a grave
quiet strength was his, and as he journeyed back to his lodgings, he did
not then regret.

Mrs. Kenny and her husband and the children were in the kitchen as he
passed and the landlady called out something, but he did not hear for he
was half-way upstairs. As he opened the door and went into his room he
saw some one was standing by the window--no, leaning far out of the
window, very far; a small figure in a black dress.

"Bella!" he cried.

She flashed about, rushed at him, and for the first time since "Going to
Siberia" he felt the entwining arms. He suffered the dashing embrace,
then, freeing himself, saw her hair dark under her black hat, and that
she had grown in eighteen months, and he heard--

"Oh, Cousin Antony, how long you have been coming home! I have been
waiting for your engine to come under the window, but I didn't see you.
How did you get here without my seeing you?"

If the sky had opened and shown him the vision of his own mother he
could not have been more overwhelmed with surprise.

"Where did you come from, Bella? Who is with you?"

She took her hat off, dropped it easily on the floor, and he saw that
her hair was braided in a great braid. She sat on the ledge of the open
window and swung her feet. Her skirts had been lengthened, but she was
still a little girl. The charming affectionate eyes beamed on him.

"But you are like anybody else, Cousin Antony, to-day. When I saw you in
your flannel shirt I thought you were a fireman."

At the remembrance of when she had seen him, a look of distress crossed
her mobile face. She burst out crying, sprang up and ran to him.

"Oh, Cousin Antony, I want him so, my little brother, my little
playmate."

He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her tears, as he had
dried them when she had cried over the blackbird.

"Who is with you, honey? Who brought you here?"

As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though she had waited
with a child's loyal tenderness for this moment, she wound her a