eps homeward just as the night was closing in, finding a
bright fire waiting for him in the library, where his supper was soon
brought by the housekeeper, Mrs. Hull, the other servants having gone to
an adjoining town to attend the wedding party of a former associate. It
was very pleasant in that cozy library of oak and green, with the bright
fire on the hearth, the heavy curtains shutting out all traces of the
storm, and the smoking supper set so temptingly before him. And Morris
felt the comfort of his home, thanking the God who had given him all
this, and chiding his wayward heart that it had ever dared to repine. He
was not repining to-night; he had not repined for many a day, though he
never sat down at home after his day's labor in slippers and
dressing-gown, with a new book beside him on the table, that there was
not a sense of something wanting, a glancing at the empty chair across
the hearth, a thought perhaps of Katy, who could squeeze the whole of
her slight form into that chair. But he was not thinking of her now, as
with his hands crossed upon his head he sat looking into the fire and
watching the bits of glowing anthracite dropping into the pan. He was
thinking of the sickbed which he had visited last, and how a faith in
Jesus can make the humblest room like the gate of heaven; thinking how
the woman's eyes had sparkled when she told him of the other world,
where she would never know pain, or hunger, or cold again, and how
quickly their luster was dimmed when she spoke of her absent husband,
the soldier to whom the news of her death with the child he had never
seen would be a crushing blow.

"They who have neither wife nor child are the happier perhaps," he said,
and then the thought of Katy and her great sorrow when baby died,
wondering if to spare herself that pain she would rather baby had never
been. "No--oh, no," he answered to his own inquiry. "She would not lose
the memory which comes from that little grave for all the world
contains. It is better once to love and lose than not to love at all. In
heaven we shall see and know why these things were permitted, and marvel
at the poor human nature which rebelled against them."

Just at this point of his soliloquy the door opened, so softly that he
did not hear it turn upon its hinges, nor hear the light footstep on the
carpet as Katy came in. But when she coughed he started up in wonder at
the apparition standing so still before him.

"Morris, oh, Morr