r veil should blow
away, I would close my eyes and feel my way to the gate. Unless you
chose to have me see your beauty, I would never ask, nor take advantage
of an accidental opportunity. I'm thinking you are very beautiful, but
you need never be afraid of me."

Miss Evelina did not reply; she only leaned more heavily against the
wall.

"Lady," he continued, "perhaps you think I do not know. You may think
I'm talking blindly, but there are few sorrows in the world that I have
not seen face to face. Those I have not had myself, my friends have
had, and I have been privileged to share with them. The sorrows of the
world are not so many--they are few, and, in essence, the same.

"It's very strange, I'm thinking. The little laughing, creeping days
go by us, then the awkward ones that bring us the first footsteps, then
childhood comes, and youth, and then maturity. But the days have begun
to grow feeble before one learns how to meet them; how to take the
gifts humbly, scorning none, and how to make each day give up its
secret balm. Memory, the angel who stands at the portal of Yesterday,
has always an inscrutable smile. She keeps for us so many things that
we would be glad to spare, and pushes headlong into Yesterday so much
that we fain would keep. I do not yet know all the ways of Memory--I
only know that she means to be kind."

"Kind!" repeated Evelina. Her tone was indescribably bitter.

"Yes," returned the Piper, "Memory means to be kind--she is kind. I
have said that I do not know her ways, but of that I am sure. Lady, I
would that you could let go of the day you are holding back. Cast her
from you, and let her go into the Yesterday from which you have kept
her so long. Perhaps Memory will be kinder to you then, for, remember,
she stands at the gate."

"I cannot," breathed Evelina. "I have tried and I cannot let her go!"

"Yes," said the Piper, very gently, "you can. 'T is that, I'm
thinking, that has set your life all wrong. Unclasp your hands from
her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes. Take her gift
and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness
and To-morrow with a brave heart. Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he
cried, his voice breaking, "I fain would see you a Spinner in the Sun!"

"No," she sighed, "I have been in the dark too long. There is no light
for me."

"There is light," he insisted. "When you admit the shadow, you have at
the same time a