telling you?"

He leaned forward to stroke the shining braids. "And your eyes?"

"Like the larkspur that grows in the garden."

"I know—your dear mother's eyes." He touched her face gently as he spoke. "Your skin is so smooth—is it fair?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"I think you must be beautiful; I have asked Miriam so often, but she will not tell me. She only says you look well enough and something like your mother. Are you beautiful?"

[11]

[11]

"Oh, Daddy! Daddy!" laughed Barbara, in confusion. "You mustn't ask such questions! Didn't you say you had made two songs? What is the other one?"

Miriam sat in the dining-room, out of sight but within hearing. Having observed that in her presence they laughed less, she spent her evenings alone unless they urged her to join them. She had a newspaper more than a week old, but, as yet, she had not read it. She sat staring into the shadows, with the light of her one candle flickering upon her face, nervously moving her work-worn hands.

"The other song," reminded Barbara, gently.

"This one was about a sunset," he sighed. "It was such a sunset as was never on sea or land, because two who loved each other saw it together. God and all His angels had hung a marvellous tapestry from the high walls of Heaven, and it reached almost to the mountain-tops, where some of the little clouds sleep.

"The man said, 'Shall we always look for the sunsets together?'

"The woman smiled and answered, 'Yes, always.'

"'And,' the man continued, 'when one of us goes on the last long journey?'

"'Then,' answered the woman, 'the other will not be watching alone. For, I think, there in the West is the Golden City with the [12]jasper walls and the jewelled foundations, where the twelve gates are twelve pearls.'"

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