s sought?"

"Y-yes--yes, I know--but, don't you see, home would not be like home to
me, unless--"

"Unless?" he wonderingly repeated.

She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of
whimsical inconsistency, "Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking
boots."

But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible
degrees was leading her toward the shining steps which descended to the
valley.

"Come, O my soul's soul," he passionately implored; "why delay a moment?
Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such
bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see our home already. Have
I not always seem it in my dreams? It is white, love, is it not, with
polished columns, and a sculptured cornice against the blue? Groves
of laurel and oleander and thickets of roses surround it; but from the
terrace where we walk at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and
cool meadows where, deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes
delicately toward the river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang upon the
walls and the rooms are lined with books. Think, dear, at last we shall
have time to read them all. With which shall we begin? Come, help me to
choose. Shall it be 'Faust' or the 'Vita Nuova,' the 'Tempest' or 'Les
Caprices de Marianne,' or the thirty-first canto of the 'Paradise,' or
'Epipsychidion' or 'Lycidas'? Tell me, dear, which one?"

As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; but it
died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, resisting the
persuasion of his hand.

"What is it?" he entreated.

"Wait a moment," she said, with a strange hesitation in her voice. "Tell
me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there no one on earth whom
you sometimes remember?"

"Not since I have seen you," he replied; for, being a man, he had indeed
forgotten.

Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened on her
soul.

"Surely, love," he rebuked her, "it was not that which troubled you? For
my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has melted like a cloud
before the moon. I never lived until I saw you."

She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself with
a visible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit
of Life, who still stood near the threshold.

"I want to ask you a question," she said, in a troubled voice.

"Ask," said the Spirit.

"A little while ago," she began,