his heart
on the Brisport quay. Her calm, eventless, unselfish life had left none
of those rude traces upon her countenance which are the outward emblems
of internal conflict and an unquiet soul. A chaste melancholy had
refined and softened her expression, and her loss of sight had been
compensated for by that placidity which comes upon the faces of the
blind. With her silvery hair peeping out beneath her snow-white cap, and
a bright smile upon her sympathetic face, she was the old Mary improved
and developed, with something ethereal and angelic superadded.

"You will keep a tenant in the cottage," she was saying to the
clergyman, who sat with his back turned to the observer. "Choose some
poor deserving folk in the parish who will be glad of a home free. And
when he comes you will tell him that I have waited for him until I have
been forced to go on, but that he will find me on the other side still
faithful and true. There's a little money too--only a few pounds--but I
should like him to have it when he comes, for he may need it, and then
you will tell the folk you put in to be kind to him, for he will be
grieved, poor lad, and to tell him that I was cheerful and happy up to
the end. Don't let him know that I ever fretted, or he may fret too."

Now John listened quietly to all this from behind the door, and more
than once he had to put his hand to his throat, but when she had
finished, and when he thought of her long, blameless, innocent life, and
saw the dear face looking straight at him, and yet unable to see him, it
became too much for his manhood, and he burst out into an irrepressible
choking sob which shook his very frame. And then occurred a strange
thing, for though he had spoken no word, the old woman stretched out her
arms to him, and cried, "Oh, Johnny, Johnny! Oh dear, dear Johnny,
you have come back to me again," and before the parson could at all
understand what had happened, those two faithful lovers were in each
other's arms, weeping over each other, and patting each other's silvery
heads, with their hearts so full of joy that it almost compensated for
all that weary fifty years of waiting.

It is hard to say how long they rejoiced together. It seemed a very
short time to them and a very long one to the reverend gentleman,
who was thinking at last of stealing away, when Mary recollected his
presence and the courtesy which was due to him. "My heart is full of
joy, sir," she said; "it is God's will that