felt a resentment to the little, red, blinking creature. He
could not forgive it yet for that long night of misery. He caught
sight of a white face in the bed and he ran towards it with such love
and pity as his speech could find no words for.

"Thank God it is over! Lucy, dear, it was dreadful!"

"But I'm so happy now. I never was so happy in my life."

Her eyes were fixed upon the brown bundle.

"You mustn't talk," said Mrs. Peyton.

"But don't leave me," whispered his wife.

So he sat in silence with his hand in hers. The lamp was burning dim
and the first cold light of dawn was breaking through the window. The
night had been long and dark but the day was the sweeter and the purer
in consequence. London was waking up. The roar began to rise from the
street. Lives had come and lives had gone, but the great machine was
still working out its dim and tragic destiny.

SWEETHEARTS.

It is hard for the general practitioner who sits among his patients
both morning and evening, and sees them in their homes between, to
steal time for one little daily breath of cleanly air. To win it he
must slip early from his bed and walk out between shuttered shops when
it is chill but very clear, and all things are sharply outlined, as in
a frost. It is an hour that has a charm of its own, when, but for a
postman or a milkman, one has the pavement to oneself, and even the
most common thing takes an ever-recurring freshness, as though
causeway, and lamp, and signboard had all wakened to the new day. Then
even an inland city may seem beautiful, and bear virtue in its
smoke-tainted air.

But it was by the sea that I lived, in a town that was unlovely enough
were it not for its glorious neighbour. And who cares for the town
when one can sit on the bench at the headland, and look out over the
huge, blue bay, and the yellow scimitar that curves before it. I loved
it when its great face was freckled with the fishing boats, and I loved
it when the big ships went past, far out, a little hillock of white and
no hull, with topsails curved like a bodice, so stately and demure.
But most of all I loved it when no trace of man marred the majesty of
Nature, and when the sun-bursts slanted down on it from between the
drifting rainclouds. Then I have seen the further edge draped in the
gauze of the driving rain, with its thin grey shading under the slow
clouds, while my headland was golden, and the sun gleamed upon the
breake