rful
valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white
January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner,
and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught
"Muddie" in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of
dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed _her_, and
dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little
scream of delight.

"Where did you get it?" she cried?

"From Willis. I've sold him 'The Raven.' He's vastly taken with it and
not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an
editorial puff in the _Mirror_ of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough
draft. He will say that it is 'the most effective example of fugitive
poetry ever published in this country,' and predict that it will 'stick
in the memory of everybody who reads it!'"

"And it will! It will!" cried Virginia. "Especially that 'Nevermore.'
I've done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to
us."

"I've done everything in time to it since I was three years old,"
murmured her husband. He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of
his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout
his life, and gazed long upon it. In his grey eyes was the tender,
brooding expression which the picture always called forth. "Ever since I
heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when
she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my
thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face
have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a
wall, blocking my way."

Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall
unheeded from her lap, and went to him. Gently taking the miniature from
his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a
hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his.

"Buddie," she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest
days, "You frighten me sometimes. The miniature is beautiful but it
makes you so sad. And when you talk that way about 'The Raven,' I feel
as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!" Then, with a
sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon
his.

"I'll have you know," she said, "I'm not dead yet, and you will not have
to jou