At last he laid his hot mouth on those sweet pictured lips, parted in wistful tenderness, as if offering much to one at whom the grey eyes looked with love unmistakable.

Then he laid it away, out of sight, and rewrote his letter.

*

"I wondered," he said, "at the great kindness which took so much trouble, only for me."

Chapter XXX - Resurgam

*

"RIVERSCOURT,

"Feast of Epiphany,

"MY DEAR DAVID,—A wonderful thing has happened; and I am so glad it happened on the Feast of the Star, which is also—as you will remember—our wedding-day.

"I want to tell you of it, David, because it is one of those utterly unexpected, beautiful happenings, which, on the rare occasions when they do occur, make one feel that, after all, nothing is irrevocably hopeless, even in this poor world of ours, where mistakes usually appear to be irretrievable, and where wisdom, bought too dearly and learned too late, can bring forth no fruit save in the mournful land of might-have-beens.

"Last year, this day was one of frost and sunshine. This year, the little Hampshire farms and homesteads, all along the railway, cannot have looked either cosy or picturesque; and the distant line of undulating hills must have been completely hidden by fog and mist. It has sleeted, off and on, during the whole morning—a seasonable attempt at snow somewhere up above, frustrated by the unseasonable murky dampness of the earth, below. I wonder how often God's purposes for us, of pure white beauty, are prevented by the murk and mist of our own mental atmosphere. This sounds like moralising, and so it is! I thought it out, in Brambledene church this morning, while god-papa was enjoying himself in the pulpit.