Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden from plants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, lived and died without having this one come into my life, and now that I have had it I don't know how to write it, except in the of blood, the blue of flame, the gold of glory—and a of light green would well express the part I have played. But it is all over at last and——  
Ruth Clinton was the unfolding of the first hour-petal, and I got a glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of. She's God's own good woman, and He made her what she is. I wish I could have borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms was a sacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's and concealments and let our own hearts do the talking.
 
She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me I might be better able to understand Alfred when he came, and that she had seen that the judge was very , and she recognised his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document to read. I suppose it was dishonourable, but I needed her protection from it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head high in the air to the fire and burn it up. Anything might have happened if she hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage will close up the case for the judge—even yet he may—— But when Ruth had got done with Alfred, she had wiped Judge 's of him completely off my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us both worse than Jane's fire burned the letter. She did me an good service.
 
"And so you see, you lovely woman, you, do you not, that you were for him, as a tribute to his greatness, and it is given to you to fulfil a destiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that I had to turn my eyes away, but I felt as I did when those solemn "let-not-man-put-asunder" words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made me frightened, and before I knew it I had poured out the whole truth to her in a perfect of words. The truth always acts on women as some hitherto untried drug, and you can never tell what the reaction is going to be. In this case I was stricken dumb and found it hard to see.
 
"Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her lovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful for you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having suffered this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept my own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement as he has for years. In the light of his love, this feeling for Dr. Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be complete." This was more than I could stand, and, feeling less than a worm, I turned my face into her breast and . Now who would have thought that girl could dance as she did?
 
By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have had to be up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in all bubbling over. Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief, and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and generally damp atmosphere.
 
"Molly," she said with a deliciously young , "Tom says you are to send him two guineas to spend getting the band to polish up before the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost him five pounds to the cornettist out of for roost robbing. He says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!"
 
"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to you, Pettie dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk for my purse.
 
"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a perfect rose cloud of blushes.
 
"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the money in her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton and we both laughed. It is true that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her the money and a .
 
"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before I could stop her she was gone.
 
She met Billy up the front step with a long piece of iron gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the . She down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft was almost more than I could stand and more than Billy was prepared to accept.
 
"Go away, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?"
 
I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on my floor. He was hot, and panting, but full of triumph.
 
"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You and father put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I can carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, and I'll help you do it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could bear.
 
"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of you and—and maybe bring you back to me some day."
 
"Why, Molly," he said, his astonished blue eyes at me, "'tisn't me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone. 'Sides, father isn't very useful and maybe wouldn't help me hold the rope right to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do like I tell him like you do."
 
"Try him, lover, and maybe he will—will learn to——" I couldn't help the tears that came to stop my words.
 
"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said with an amused, little tenderness in his voice that I had never heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses every night if you don't say no more about not going, and make that whale-hook for me quick," he against my cheek.
 
Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy little hand burned the sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you are! You are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit.
 
I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in their constitutions.
 
She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's house, and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in which were packed things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards the entertainment of the citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred's nearest in Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest while he is in town.
 
"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eating my Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's old port in it," teased Aunt Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them.
 
"There's going to be a regular of love affairs in Hillsboro, I do believe," she continued in her usual strain of . "I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the draper's an hour ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to match Pet for the west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn't even see me. That was what might have been called a dinner you gave the other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a spark had set off Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is just taking fire slowly."
 
I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie every............