and stood uncovered in its presence. Since his marriage a home had
taken on a deeper meaning. Without losing a jot of its sacredness, it
had come to stand for something of pain. On his walk that morning he
had noted many things with new eyes--the flowers gladdening the face
of nature; the trees rearing their proud heads and standing each in
his own place--each doing his own work; the birds trilling their songs
of praise and stirring in the soul those holy aspirations whose feet
scarce touch the earth and whose face is set toward heaven--all these
doing the Father's work and answering with the quick response of
perfect obedience, perfect sympathy to the divine will. Viewing them
now with a soul made receptive by the tender sadness of real life,
Steve asked himself over and over again, Am I fulfilling the divine
mission?

When he reached home his face wore a thoughtful look, and the question
of the morning lay deep within his eyes as he walked into the garden
and came upon Nannie's work. For a long time he stood there gazing at
it. An ordinary man would have been intensely angry, and whatever good
he might have felt or purposed during his walk would have taken wings.

But it did not occur to Steve just then to be angry. Up to this time,
like most another really thoughtful person, he had done very little
actual thinking, but now he was entered upon a life which is God's own
school for the development of character, and in the mental and
spiritual awakening of which he was only dimly conscious he began to
see that many things which he had hitherto accepted as a matter of
course were in reality the result of causes which could and should be
removed. Passion blurs the vision, and Steve was straining his eyes to
see just then, so it was necessary above all things that he should
hold himself in hand.

"What makes Nannie act so?"

This was the question he was asking as he stood by his despoiled
garden, and the answer began to come to him in a shadowy sort of way.
It was not just what he imagined it would be--not just what he would
have wished it to be. Few answers take on the shape we anticipate or
desire, but it was undeniably an answer, and he turned, possibly in
obedience, to a cool, shady nook near by, and plucking a few late
violets which were growing there, went into the house where Nannie sat
alone at breakfast, and laying these gently on the table beside her,
without a word went on his way to the station and took his