still, and have never loved him more than I do to-day.'"

"Dear, blessed Constance," he said, crushing the lie to his lips. "Dear
wife, true wife; truest of all the world."

Barbara could bear no more. "Let me have the letter again, Daddy."

[Sidenote: After Years of Waiting]

"No, dear, no. After all these years of waiting, let me keep it for a
little while. Just for a little while, Barbara. Please." His voice broke
at the end.

"For a little while, then, Daddy," she said, slowly; "only a little
while."

[Sidenote: His Illumined Face]

He went out, with the precious letter in his hand. Miriam was in the
hall, but he was unconscious of the fact. She shrank back against the
wall as he passed her, with his fine old face illumined as from some
light within.

In his own room, he sat down, after closing the door, and spread the two
sheets on the table before him. He moved his hands caressingly over the
lines Constance had written in ink and Barbara in pencil.

"She died loving me," he said to himself, "and I was wrong. She did not
change when I was blind and Barbara was lame. All these years I have
been doubting her while her own assurance was in the house.

"She thought she failed me--the dear saint thought she failed. It must
take me all eternity to atone to her for that. But she died loving me."
His thought lingered fondly upon the words, then the tears streamed
suddenly over his blind face.

"Oh, Constance, Constance," he cried aloud, forgetting that the dead
cannot hear. "You never failed me! Forgive me if you can."

XV

The Song of the Pines

Upon the couch in the sitting-room, though it was not yet noon, Miss
Mattie slept peacefully. She had the repose, not merely of one dead, but
of one who had been dead long and was very weary at the time of dying.

As Doctor Conrad had expected, her back was entirely well the morning
following his visit, and when she awoke, free from pain, she had dinned
his praises into Roger's ears until that long-suffering young man was
well-nigh fatigued. The subject was not exhausted, however, even though
Roger was.

[Sidenote: A Wonder-Worker]

"I'll tell you what it is, Roger," Miss Mattie had said, drawing a long
breath, and taking a fresh start; "a young man that can cure a pain like
mine, with pills that size, has got a great future ahead of him as well
as a brilliant past behind. He's a wonder-worker, that's what he is, not
to mention bein' a mind-reader as