e mud pies together
and built the Tower of Cologne, for which, alas,
we never got the golden bells. I have loved you
always and it has not changed since the beginning,
save to grow deeper and sweeter with every day
that passed.

"As much as I have of courage, or tenderness, or
truth, or honour, I owe to you, who set my
standard high for me at the beginning, and oh, my
dearest, my love has kept me clean. If I have
nothing else to give you, I can offer you a clean
heart and clean hands, for there is nothing in my
life that can make me ashamed to look straight
into the eyes of the woman I love.

"Ever since we went to that wedding the other day,
I have been wishing it were our own--that you and
I might stand together before God's high altar in
that little church with the sun streaming in, and
be joined, each to the other, until death do us
part.

"Sweetheart, can you trust me? Can you believe
that it is for always and not just for a little
while? Has your mother left her love to you as my
father left me his?

"Let me have the sweetness of your leaning on me
always, let me take care of you, comfort you when
you are tired, laugh with you when you are glad,
and love you until death and even after, as he
loved her.

"Tell me you care, Barbara, even if it is only a
little. Tell me you care, and I can wait, a long,
long time.

"ROGER."

Barbara's heart sang with the joy of the morning. She opened the little
worn book, with its yellow, tear-stained pages, and read it all, up to
the very last line.

"Oh!" she cried aloud, in pity. "Oh! oh!"

Fully understanding, she put it aside, closing the faded cover
reverently on its love and pain. Then she turned to Roger's letter, and
read it again.

[Sidenote: First Flush of Rapture]

Dreaming over it, in the first flush of that mystical rapture which
makes the world new for those to whom it comes, as light is recreated
with every dawn, she took no heed of the passing hours. She did not know
that it was very late, nor that Aunt Miriam, much worried, had asked
Roger to go in search of her. She knew only that love and mornin