he past, who were making
a new country in the wilderness, and yet there was an unsuspected
softness--the other "soul side" which even a hero may have, "to show a
woman when he loves her."

There are other treasures to be found with the letters--old
daguerreotypes, in ornate cases, showing the girlish, sweet face of her
who is a grandmother now, or perhaps a soldier in the trappings of war,
the first of a valiant line.

There are songs which are never sung, save as a quavering lullaby to
some mite who will never remember the tune, and fragments of nocturnes
or simple melodies, which awaken the past as surely as the lost shell
brings to the traveller inland the surge and thunder of the distant sea.

[Sidenote: The Mysteries of Life and Death]

All the mysteries of life and death are woven in with the letters; those
pathetic remembrances which the years may fade but never destroy. There
are old school books, dog-eared and musty, scraps of rich brocade and
rustling taffeta, the yellowed sampler which was the daily trial of
some little maid, and the first white robe of someone who has grown
children of his own.

[Sidenote: Memory's Singing]

Give Memory an old love letter and listen to her singing. There is quiet
at first, as though she were waiting for some step to die away, or some
childish laughter to cease. Then there is a hushed arpeggio, struck from
strings which are old and worn, but sweet and tender still.

Sometimes the song is of an old farmhouse on the western plains, where
life meant struggle and bitter privation. Brothers and sisters, in the
torn, faded clothes which were all they had; father's tremulous "God
bless you," when someone went away. Mother's never-ending toil, and the
day when her roughened hands were crossed upon her breast, at rest for
the first time, while the children cried in wonder and fear.

Then the plaintive minor swells for a moment into the full major chord,
when Love, the King, in royal purple, took possession of the desolate
land. Corn huskings and the sound of "Money Musk," scarlet ears and
stolen kisses under the harvest moon, youth and laughter, and the
eternal, wavering hope for better things. Long years of toil, with
interludes of peace and divine content, little voices, and sometimes a
little grave. Separation and estrangement, trust and misgiving,
heartache and defeat.

[Sidenote: A Magic in the Strings]

The tears may start at Memory's singing, but as the song goes on