"

He leaned forward to stroke the shining braids. "And your eyes?"

"Like the larkspur that grows in the garden."

"I know--your dear mother's eyes." He touched her face gently as he
spoke. "Your skin is so smooth--is it fair?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"I think you must be beautiful; I have asked Miriam so often, but she
will not tell me. She only says you look well enough and something like
your mother. Are you beautiful?"

"Oh, Daddy! Daddy!" laughed Barbara, in confusion. "You mustn't ask such
questions! Didn't you say you had made two songs? What is the other
one?"

Miriam sat in the dining-room, out of sight but within hearing. Having
observed that in her presence they laughed less, she spent her evenings
alone unless they urged her to join them. She had a newspaper more than
a week old, but, as yet, she had not read it. She sat staring into the
shadows, with the light of her one candle flickering upon her face,
nervously moving her work-worn hands.

"The other song," reminded Barbara, gently.

[Sidenote: Song of the Sunset]

"This one was about a sunset," he sighed. "It was such a sunset as was
never on sea or land, because two who loved each other saw it together.
God and all His angels had hung a marvellous tapestry from the high
walls of Heaven, and it reached almost to the mountain-tops, where some
of the little clouds sleep.

"The man said, 'Shall we always look for the sunsets together?'

"The woman smiled and answered, 'Yes, always.'

"'And,' the man continued, 'when one of us goes on the last long
journey?'

"'Then,' answered the woman, 'the other will not be watching alone. For,
I think, there in the West is the Golden City with the jasper walls and
the jewelled foundations, where the twelve gates are twelve pearls.'"

There was a long silence. "And so--" said Barbara, softly.

Ambrose North lifted his grey head from his hands and rose to his feet
unsteadily. "And so," he said, with difficulty, "she leans from the
sunset toward him, but he can never see her, because he is blind. Oh,
Barbara," he cried, passionately, "last night I dreamed that you could
walk and I could see!"

"So we can, Daddy," said Barbara, very gently. "Our souls are neither
blind nor lame. Here, I am eyes for you and you are feet for me, so we
belong together. And--past the sunset----"

"Past the sunset," repeated the old man, dreamily, "soul and body shall
be as one. We must wait--for life is made up of waiting--and ma