flowers to-day?" she asks, with her dark wet eyes
raised for the first time.

"My darling, this is not the day we go for the flowers; that is
to-morrow."

"And what is the use of it?" she says, letting her head sink sadly
again. "Every time I go over to Nunhead I listen all by myself--and I
know he is not there at all. The flowers look pretty, because his name
is over them. But he is not there at all--he is far away--and he was to
send me a message--and every day I wait for it--and they keep the letter
back. Mother, are all my dresses ready?"

"Yes, Violet."

"You are quite sure!"

"They are all ready, Violet. Don't trouble about that."

"It is the white satin one he will like the best; and he will be pleased
that I am not in black like the others. Mother, Mrs. Warrener and Amy
surely cannot mean to come to the wedding in black."

"Surely not, Violet. But come, dear, to your breakfast."

She took her place quite calmly and humbly; but her mind was still
wandering toward that picture.

"I hope they will strew the church-yard with flowers as we pass through
it--not for me, but for him; for he will be pleased with that; and there
is more than all that is in the Prayer-book that I will promise to be to
him, when we two are kneeling together. You are quite sure everything is
ready?"

"Everything, my darling."

"And you think the message from him will come soon now?"

"I think it will come soon now, Violet," was the answer, given with
trembling lips.

THE END.

* * * * *

And now to you--you whose names are written in these blurred pages, some
portion of whose lives I have tried to trace with a wandering and
uncertain pen--I stretch out a hand of farewell. Yet not quite of
farewell, perhaps: for amid all the shapes and phantoms of this world of
mystery, where the shadows we meet can tell us neither whence they came
nor whither they go, surely you have for me a no less substantial
existence that may have its chances in the time to come. To me you are
more real than most I know: what wonder then if I were to meet you on
the threshold of the great unknown, you all shining with a new light on
your face? Trembling, I stretch out my hands to you, for your silence is
awful, and there is sadness in your eyes; but the day may come when you
will speak, and I shall hear--and understand.

JULIET ON THE BALCONY.

O lips that are so lonely
F