ce's voice had not its usual cool evenness, but was
husky, and faltered now and then--"she said, 'Do not refuse my last
wish! I do not tell you what it is, for fear you should refuse at once,
and shut me up with myself again. Do not refuse, for the sake of
Christian kindness, of which I have known nothing hitherto, but which I
mean to learn something about if I can.'"

"And then?"

"And then--she kissed me--Margaret, it is brutal of you to make me tell
this!--she kissed me twice, and said--" Grace's voice broke.
"I--cannot!" she faltered.

Margaret rose to her feet with a sudden impulse. "Hark!" she said. "Is
that Uncle John calling me? Wait here, please, both of you!" and she
ran off, never looking behind her. It was the first and last deceitful
act of Margaret Montfort's life.

There was a long silence. Hugh Montfort stared at the box-tree. Grace
cried a little, quietly; then wiped away her tears, not noticing them
much, and observed an ant running along the path. At last, "Well?" said
Hugh.

"Well!" said Grace. "I am sorry to have made such a spectacle of myself.
Is there anything to say?"

Hugh plucked a box-leaf and scrutinized it carefully.

"They make these things so even!" he said.

"Machinery never could--Let me tell you a story. Do you mind? Once upon
a time there was a man--or--well, call him a man! He was part of one,
anyhow, as much as accident allowed. He was not strong, but he could
work, and he meant to work, and do things he cared about, and lead as
good a life as he knew how. He had been a good deal alone, somehow,
though he had dear good people of his own; he was an odd stick, I
suppose, as odd as the one he walked with."

He stopped, glanced at his stick, with its handle worn smooth as glass;
then he went on.

"He had never seen much of women, except his own family; never thought
about them much as individuals, though always in his mind there was a
dream--I suppose all men have it--of some one he should meet some day,
who would turn the world from gray to gold. One day--he saw a vision;
and--after that--he learned, not all at once, but little by little, that
life was not full and rounded, as he had thought it, but empty and
one-sided and unprofitable, if this vision could not be always before
his eyes; if this one woman could not come into his life, to be his
star, his light, his joy and happiness. She was poor, like himself. He
thought of working for her, of sharing with her the honest,