e Christian, let each pity the other; because
one, I know not which, is weak, and because the other, I know not which,
is strong. I left the building; I came upon the street. I felt like
saluting every one as my brother. A little ragged child touched me,
and as I laid my hand upon her curly head, the thrill of humanity shot
through me.

"It was not until I went to New York that the feelings I then
experienced took on a definite shape. There, removed from my old haunts,
I wandered alone when I could. Then I thought of you, my friend, of
you, my child, and beside you I was pitiful,--pitiful, because in my
narrowness I had thought myself strong enough to uphold a vanishing
restriction. I resolved to be practical; I have been accused of being
a dreamer. I grasped your two images before me and drew parallels.
Socially each was as high as the other. Mentally the woman was as strong
in her sphere as the man was in his. Physically both were perfect types
of pure, healthy blood. Morally both were irreproachable. Religiously
each held a broad love for God and man. I stood convicted; I was in
the position of a blind fool who, with a beautiful picture before him,
fastens his critical, condemning gaze upon a rusting nail in the rusting
wall behind,--a nail even now loosened, and which in another generation
will be displaced. Yet what was I to do? Come back and tell you that I
had been needlessly cruel? What would that avail? True, I might make you
believe that I no longer thought marriage between you wrong; but that
would not remove the fact that the world, which so easily makes us happy
or otherwise, did not see as I saw. In this vortex I was stricken ill.
All the while I wanted to hasten to you, to tell you how it was with
me, and it seemed as if I never could get to you. 'Is this Nemesis,' I
thought, 'or divine interposition?' So I struggled till Louis came. Then
all was easier. I told him everything and said, 'Louis, what shall
I do?' 'only this,' he answered simply: 'tell them that their happy
marriage will be your happiness, and the rest of the world will be as
nothing to these two who love each other.'"

The old man paused; the little sunbeam had reached the end of the
coverlet and gave a leap upon Louis's shoulder like an angle's finger,
but his gaze remained fixed upon the cupids on the ceiling. Ruth had
covered her face with her hands. Mrs. Levice was softly weeping, with
her eyes on Louis. Dr. Kemp had risen and stood, t