dinner served in their own small
drawing-room, the flowers which crowned the table, the blithe talk Craig
made during the little feast, with all its pretty, ceremonious detail of
service; finally the short drive to the place where the great music, as
Craig had called it, was to be heard--it all made a richly enchanting
picture in Georgiana's mind.

When at length she sat beside her husband in the immense, silent
audience, listening to such splendid harmonies as only once or twice in
her lifetime she had heard before, her heart was far too full for words.
He did not ask them of her, understanding something of what was passing
in her mind, though not even his more than ordinary powers of sympathy
could have guessed at all that held her breathless through those hours
of supreme delight.

Certain words of a Psalm, which she had often heard her father quote,
came into her mind and repeated themselves over and over. She had smiled
with a bitter irony sometimes when she had heard him speak them in a
tone of utter thankfulness, while she had been quite unable to imagine
how he could use them of himself. But now--now--surely they applied to
her!

Along with the sweep of the conductor's baton, with the rise and surge
of one of the greatest of the symphonies, ran the triumphant words of
the singer of old time: "_Thou hast set my feet in a large room._"

Surely it was a large room into which, from a cramped and restricted
one, she had emerged. She would do small honour to the devout life which
had so long been lived beside her if she should fail to give the praise
to the Maker of all life, who, according to her father's firm belief,
had known from the beginning all for which He had been so wisely fitting
her.

CHAPTER XXVI

SALT WATER

It was the tenth day of April. A great ship was making ready to sail;
she lay like some inert monster at her pier, while all about her, within
and without, was apparent commotion yet really ordered haste, the
customary scene of bustling activity.

Few passengers had yet arrived, for the time of sailing was still some
hours away. One party of three, however, had just driven down to the
very gangway, allowed by some special privilege a closer approach than
most at this hour. The reason was apparent when the party alighted, for
one of its number was clearly an invalid, a frail-looking man with curly
gray hair, who leaned upon the arm of a much younger man with a keen,
distinguished fa