wife and
child. "The unity among them is so healthy and beautiful."

"I did not feel it as you do," said Miss Defourchet, drawing her shawl
closer, and shivering.

Starke came down on the grass to play with the boy, throwing him down on
the heaps of hay there to see him jump and rush back undaunted. Yet in
all his rude romps the solemn quiet of the hour was creeping over him.
He sat down by Jane on the wooden steps at last, while, the boy, after
an impetuous kiss or two, curled up at their feet and went to sleep The
question about the model had stirred an old doubt in Jane's heart. She
watched her husband keenly. Was he thinking of that old dream? _Would_
he go back to it? the long dull pain of those dead years creeping
through her brain. He looked up from the boy, stroking his gray
beard,--his eyes, she saw, full of tears.

"I was thinking, Jane, how much of our lives was lost before we found
our true work."

"Yes, Joseph."

He gathered up the boy, holding him close to his bony chest.

"I'd like to think," he said. "I could atone for that waste, Jane. It
was my fault. I'd like to think I'd earn up yonder that cross of the
Legion of Honor--through him."

"God knows," she said.

After that they were silent a long while, They were thinking of Him who
had brought the little child to them.

* * * * *

A LOYAL WOMAN'S NO.

No! is my answer from this cold, bleak ridge
Down to your valley: you may rest you there:
The gulf is wide, and none can build a bridge
That your gross weight would safely hither bear.

Pity me, if you will. I look at you
With something that is kinder far than scorn,
And think, "Ah, well! I might have grovelled, too;
I might have walked there, fettered and forsworn."

I am of nature weak as others are;
I might have chosen comfortable ways;
Once from these heights I shrank, beheld afar,
In the soft lap of quiet, easy days.

I might--(I will not hide it)--once I might
Have lost, in the warm whirlpools of your voice,
The sense of Evil, the stern cry of Right;
But Truth has steered me free, and I rejoice:

Not with the triumph that looks back to jeer
At the poor herd that call their misery bliss;
But as a mortal speaks when God is near,
I drop you down my answer; it is this:--

I am not yours, because you seek in me
What is the lowest in my ow