ke a
veritable saltinbanco. Ray looked grimly on and inspected the
evolutions; then there was long process of question and answer and
asseveration, and, when the youth departed, little Jane had announced
with authority that Ray should throw away his crutch and stand on two
feet of his own again.

"What a gay fellow he is!" said Ray, drawing a breath of relief.
"They're all alike, dancing on graves. To be an old Temeraire decked out
in signal-flags after thunderous work well done, and settling down, is
one thing. But we,--to-day, when one would think every woman in the land
should wear the sackcloth and ashes of mourning, we break into a
splendor of apparel that defies the butterflies and boughs of the dying
year."

"Two striking examples before you," said little Jane, with a laugh, as
she looked at her old print and at Vivia's gray gown.

"I wasn't thinking of you. I saw the ladies in the village
yesterday,--they were pied and parded."

"Children," said Mrs. Vennard from within, "I've taken up the coffee
now. I sha'n't wait a minute longer. Vivia, I'll beat an egg into
yours."

But the children had wandered down to the lake-shore, oblivious of her
cry, and were standing on the rock watching their images glassed below
and ever freshly shattered with rippling undulations. A wherry chained
beside them Vivia rocked lightly with her foot.

"You and little Jane will set me down by-and-by?" she asked. "'T will be
so much pleasanter than the coach."

"And, Vivia dear, you will go, then?" exclaimed little Jane, with
tearful eyes. "You will certainly go?"

"Yes," said Vivia, looking out and far away, "I shall go to do that"--

"Which no one can ever do for _you_," said Ray, with a shudder.

"Which some woman will praise Heaven for."

"God bless you, Vivia!" cried little Jane.

"He has already blessed me," said Vivia, softly.

Janet nestled nearer to Ray's side, as they stood. There was a tremor of
gladness through all the dew of her glance. Ray looked down at her for a
moment, and his hard brow softened, in his eyes hung a light like the
reflection of a star in a breaking wave.

"He has blessed me, too," said he. "Some day I shall be a man again. I
have thrown away my crutch, Vivia,--for all my life I am going to have
this little shoulder to lean upon."

And over his sombre face a smile crept and deepened, like the yellow
ray, that, after a long, dark day of driving rain, suddenly gilds the
tree-tops and brims