st,--

"He was right; doing one's duty _is_ the way to feed heart, soul, and
imagination; for if one is good, one is happy, and if happy, one can
work well."

III

"She broke her head and went home to come no more," was Giovanni's
somewhat startling answer when Paul asked about Psyche, finding that
he no longer met her on the stairs or in the halls. He understood what
the boy meant, and with an approving nod turned to his work again,
saying, "I like that! If there is any power in her, she has taken the
right way to find it out, I suspect."

How she prospered he never asked; for, though he met her more
than once that year, the interviews were brief ones in street,
concert-room, or picture-gallery, and she carefully avoided speaking
of herself. But, possessing the gifted eyes which can look below the
surface of things, he detected in the girl's face something better
than beauty, though each time he saw it, it looked older and more
thoughtful, often anxious and sad.

"She is getting on," he said to himself with a cordial satisfaction
which gave his manner a friendliness as grateful to Psyche as his wise
reticence.

Adam was finished at last, proved a genuine success, and Paul heartily
enjoyed the well-earned reward for years of honest work. One blithe
May morning, he slipped early into the art-gallery, where the statue
now stood, to look at his creation with paternal pride. He was quite
alone with the stately figure that shone white against the purple
draperies and seemed to offer him a voiceless welcome from its marble
lips. He gave it one loving look, and then forgot it, for at the feet
of his Adam lay a handful of wild violets, with the dew still on
them. A sudden smile broke over his face as he took them up, with the
thought, "She has been here and found my work good."

For several moments he stood thoughtfully turning the flowers to and
fro in his hands; then, as if deciding some question within himself,
he said, still smiling,--

"It is just a year since she went home; she must have accomplished
something in that time; I'll take the violets as a sign that I may go
and ask her what."

He knew she lived just out of the city, between the river and the
mills, and as he left the streets behind him, he found more violets
blooming all along the way like flowery guides to lead him right.
Greener grew the road, balmier blew the wind, and blither sang the
birds, as he went on, enjoying his holiday with the zes