the
pines, beyond the skies. As time went on, the vision simplified itself
to Peter, as visions will. It came to have two phases, two elements,
which visited him always together.

One of these was a house; the other a girl. The house was low,
white-painted, with green blinds and a broad stoop. Its front yard was
fragrant with lilacs, noisy with crickets, fluttering with butterflies
of sulphur yellow. About it lay a stony, barren farm, but lovely with
the glamour of home. The girl was not pretty, as we know girls; but she
had straight steady eyes, a wide brow, smooth matronly bands of hair,
and a wholesome, homely New England character, sweet, yet with a tang to
give it a flavour, like the apples on the tree near the old-fashioned,
long-armed well. Peter could gain no competence from the stony farm, no
consent from the girl. It was to win both that he had come West.

In those days, around the western curve of the earth, every outlook
borrowed the tints of sunset. Nothing but the length of the journey
stood between a man and his fortune.

"I love you dearly, Peter," she had said, both hands on his shoulders,
"and I do not care for the money. But I have seen too much of it
here--too much of the unhappiness that comes from debt, from poverty.
Misery does not love the company of those it loves. Go make your
fortune, Peter, bravely, and come back to me."

"I will," replied Peter, soberly. "I will, God help me. But it may be
long. I don't know; I have not the knack; I am stupid about people,
about men."

She smiled, and leaned over to kiss his eyes. "People love you, Peter,"
she said, simply. "I love you, and I will wait. If it were fifty years,
you will find me here ready when you come."

Peter knew this to be true. And so to the unpeopled rooms of the little
old Vermont farmhouse Peter's gentle thoughts ever swarmed, like homing
bees. In his vision of it the lilac-bush outside the window always
smelled of spring; she always sat there beside the open sash,
waiting--for him. What wonder that he survived when so many others went
down? What wonder that he persevered? What wonder that his patient soul,
comparing the eternity of love's happiness with the paltry years of
love's waiting, saw nothing in the condition of affairs to ruffle its
peaceful serenity? And yet to most the time would have seemed very, very
long. Men may blunder against rich pockets or leads and wealthy say
farewell to a day which they greeted as the po