he--could he love me to the end--even if--? Why should we not make the
best of what we have? Why should we not make life as happy to ourselves
and to others as we can--however worthless, however arrant a cheat it
may be? Even if there be no such thing as love, if it be all but a
lovely vanity, a bubble-play of color, why not let the bubble-globe
swell, and the tide of its ocean of color flow and rush and mingle and
change? Will it not break at last, and the last come soon enough, when
of all the glory is left but a tear on the grass? When we dream a
pleasant dream, and know it is but a dream, we will to dream on, and
quiet our minds that it may not be scared and flee: why should we not
yield to the stronger dream, that it may last yet another sweet,
beguiling moment? Why should he not love me--kiss me? Why should we not
be sad together, that we are not and can not be the real man and woman
we would--that we are but the forms of a dream--the fleeting shadows of
the night of Nature?--mourn together that the meddlesome hand of fate
should have roused us to consciousness and aspiration so long before the
maturity of our powers that we are but a laughter--no--a scorn and a
weeping to ourselves? We could at least sympathize with each other in
our common misery--bear with its weakness, comfort its regrets, hide its
mortifications, cherish its poor joys, and smooth the way down the
steepening slope to the grave! Then, if in the decrees of blind fate,
there should be a slow, dull procession toward perfection, if indeed
some human God be on the way to be born, it would be grand, although we
should know nothing of it, to have done our part fearless and hopeless,
to have lived and died that the triumphant Sorrow might sit throned on
the ever dying heart of the universe. But never, never would I have
chosen to live for that! Yes, one might choose to be born, if there were
suffering one might live or die to soften, to cure! That would be to be
like Paul Faber. To will to be born for that would be grand indeed!"

In paths of thought like these her mind wandered, her head lying upon
her arms on the old-fashioned, wide-spread window-sill. At length, weary
with emotion and weeping, she fell fast asleep, and slept for some time.

The house was very still. Mr. Drake and Dorothy were in no haste to
return. Amanda was asleep, and Lisbeth was in the kitchen--perhaps also
asleep.

Juliet woke with a great start. Arms were around her from be