is clothed in festive mind for this evening.
Come to my sitting-room, Jennie, and we can have a comfortable chat."

Left to herself, Ruth hesitated before going to her father with her
ill-boding tidings. None knew better than she of the great, silent
love that bound her parents. As a quiet, observant child, she had often
questioned wherein could be any sympathy between her father, almost old,
studious, and reserved, and her beautiful, worldly young mother. But
as she matured, she became conscious that because of this apparent
disparity it would have been still stranger had Mrs. Levice not loved
him with a feeling verging nearer humble adoration than any lower
passion. It seemed almost a mockery for her to have to tell him he had
been negligent,--not only a mockery, but a cruelty. However, it had
to be done, and she was the only one to do it. Having come to this
conclusion, she ran quickly downstairs, and softly, without knocking,
opened the library door.

She entered so quietly that Mr. Levice, reading by the window, did
not glance from his book. She stood a moment regarding the small
thoughtful-faced, white-haired man.

If one were to judge but by results, Jules Levice would be accounted a
fortunate man. Nearing the allotted threescore and ten, blessed with
a loving, beloved wife and this one idolized ewe-lamb, surrounded by
luxury, in good health, honored, and honorable,--trouble and travail
seemed to have passed him by. But this scene of human happiness was the
result of intelligent and unremitting effort. A high state of earthly
beatitude has seldom been attained without great labor of mind or body
by ourselves or those akin to us. Jules Levice had been thrown on the
world when a boy of twelve. He resolved to become happy. Many of us do
likewise; but we overlook the fact that we are provided with feet, not
wings, and cannot fly to the goal. His dream of happiness was ambitious;
it soared beyond contentment. Not being a lily of the field, he knew
that he must toil; any honest work was acceptable to him. He was
possessed of a fine mind; he cultivated it. He had a keen observation;
he became a student of his fellow-men; and being strong and untiring, he
became rich. This was but the nucleus of his ambitions, and it came to
him late in life, but not too late for him to build round it his happy
home, and to surround himself with the luxuries of leisure for attaining
the pinnacle of wide information that he had always