s ready,
and he went with Mavick and the Van Dams and some other men of the club
on a cruise up the coast. Edith was left alone with her Baltimore
friend.

And yet not alone. As she lay in her hammock in those dreamy days a new
world opened to her. It was not described in the chance romance she took
up, nor in the volume of poems she sometimes held in her hand, with a
finger inserted in the leaves. Of this world she felt herself the centre
and the creator, and as she mused upon its mysteries, life took a new,
strange meaning to her. It was apt to be a little hazy off there in the
watery horizon, and out of the mist would glide occasionally a boat,
and the sun would silver its sails, and it would dip and toss for half an
hour in the blue, laughing sea, and then disappear through the mysterious
curtain. Whence did it come? Whither had it gone? Was life like that?
Was she on the shore of such a sea, and was this new world into which she
was drifting only a dream? By her smile, by the momentary illumination
that her sweet thoughts made in her lovely, hopeful face, you knew that
it was not. Who can guess the thoughts of a woman at such a time? Are
the trees glad in the spring, when the sap leaps in their trunks, and the
buds begin to swell, and the leaves unfold in soft response to the
creative impulse? The miracle is never old nor commonplace to them, nor
to any of the human family. The anticipation of life is eternal. The
singing of the birds, the blowing of the south wind, the sparkle of the
waves, all found a response in Edith's heart, which leaped with joy. And
yet there was a touch of melancholy in it all, the horizon was so vast,
and the mist of uncertainty lay along it. Literature, society,
charities, all that she had read and experienced and thought, was nothing
to this, this great unknown anxiety and bliss, this saddest and sweetest
of all human experiences. She prayed that she might be worthy of this
great distinction, this responsibility and blessing.

And Jack, dear Jack, would he love her more?

XII

Although Father Damon had been absent from his charge only ten days, it
was time for him to return. If he had not a large personal following, he
had a wide influence. If comparatively few found their way to his
chapel, he found his way to many homes; his figure was a familiar one in
the streets, and his absence was felt by hundreds who had no personal
relations with him, but who had become accustomed to s