d blooms anew
To think that you
Can speak again,
Can hear
The words of men
And the dear
Own voice of you.

This was Newland Sanders. He was just out of college, a reviewer, a
poet, and once, momentarily, an atheist. It was Newland who was present
and said such a remarkable thing when Julia had the accident to her
thumb-nail in closing the double doors between the living-room and the
library, where her peculiar old father sat reading. "To see you suffer,"
Newland said passionately as she nursed her injury:--"to see you in
pain, that is the one thing in the universe which I feel beyond all my
capacities. Do you know, when you are made to suffer pain, then I feel
that there is no God!"

This strong declaration struck Herbert as one of the most impressive
things he had ever heard, though he could not account for its being said
to any aunt of his. Herbert had just dropped in without the formality of
ringing the bell, and had paused in the hall, outside the open door of
the living-room. He considered the matter, after Newland had spoken, and
concluded to return to his own place of residence without disturbing
anybody at his grandfather's. At home he found his mother and father
entertaining one of his uncles, one of his aunts, two of his
great-uncles, one of his great-aunts, and one of his grown-up cousins,
at cards: and he proved to be warranted in believing that they would all
like to know what he had heard. Newland's statement became quite
celebrated throughout the family: and Julia, who had perceived almost a
sacred something in his original fervour, changed her mind after hearing
the words musingly repeated, over and over, by her fat old Uncle Joe.

Florence thought proper to remind her of this to-day, after Julia's
protest containing the too moderately confessional word "three."

"If you don't want to be such a circus," the niece continued, reasoning
perfectly, "I don't see what you always keep leadin' all of 'em on all
the time just the same for."

"Who've you heard saying that, Florence?" her aunt demanded.

"Aunt Fanny Patterson," Florence replied absently. "F'r instance, Aunt
Julia, I don't see what you want to go walking with Newland Sanders for,
when you said yourself you wished he was dead, or somep'n, after there
got to be so muck talk in the family and everywhere about his sayin' all
that about the Bible when you hurt your thumb. All the family----"

Julia sighed profoundly. "I