holds it closer, closer always, when little
Joseph's sense grows dull, and he moans for
the friendly music that he has known from a
baby, the friendly music that he can now so
hardly, hardly hear? Who kneels down by
Uncle Joseph when his heart is breaking, and
says, ' Oh, hush! hush! The boy has gone
where the better music plays, where the sickness
shall never waste or the sorrow touch
him more! ' Who? Ah, Sarah! you cannot
forget those days; you cannot forget the
Long Ago! When the trouble is bitter, and
the burden is heavy, it is cruelty to Uncle
Joseph to keep away; it is kindness to him
to come here."

The recollections that the old man had
called up, found their way tenderly to Sarah's
heart. She could not answer him; she could
only hold out her hand. Uncle Joseph bent
down, with a quaint, affectionate gallantry,
and kissed it; then stepped back again to his
place by the musical box. "Come! " he said,
patting it cheerfully, " we will say no more
for a while. Mozart's box, Max's box, little
Joseph's box, you shall talk to us again!"

Having put the tiny machinery in motion,
he sat down by the table, and remained
silent until the air had been played over
twice. Then, observing that his niece seemed
calmer, he spoke to her once more.

"You are in trouble, Sarah," he said,
quietly. " You tell me that, and I see it is
true in your face. Are you grieving for your
husband?"

"I grieve that I ever met him," she
answered. "I grieve that I ever married him.
Now that he is dead, I cannot grieve— I can
only forgive him."

"Forgive him? How you look, Sarah,
when you say that! Tell me—"

"Uncle Joseph! I have told you that my
husband is dead, and that I have forgiven him."

"You have forgiven him? He was hard
and cruel with you, then? I see; I see.
That is the end, Sarah—but the beginning?
Is the beginning that you loved him?"

Her pale cheeks flushed; and she turned
her head aside. " It is hard and humbling
to confess it," she murmured, without raising
her eyes; " but you force the truth from me,
uncle. I had no love to give to my husband—
no love to give to any man."

"And yet, you married him! Wait! it is
not for me to blame. It is for me to find out
not the bad, but the good. Yes, yes; I
shall say to myself, she married him when
she was poor and helpless; she married him
when she should have come to Uncle Joseph,
instead. I shall say that to myself, and I
shall pity, but I shall ask no more."

Sarah half reached her hand out to the
old man again— then suddenly pushed her
chair back, and changed the position in which
she was sitting. " It is true that I was
poor," she said, looking about her in
confusion, and speaking with difficulty. " But
you are so good and so kind, I cannot accept
the excuse that your forbearance makes for
me. I did not marry him because I was
poor, but—" She stopped, clasped her
hands together, and pushed her chair back
still farther from the table.

"So! so! " said the old man, noticing her
confusion. " We will talk about it no more."

"I had no excuse of love; I had no excuse
of poverty," she said, with a sudden burst of
bitterness and despair. "Uncle Joseph, I
married him because I was too weak to
persist in saying No! The curse of weakness
and fear has followed me all the days of my
life! I said No to him once; I said No to
him twice. Oh, uncle, if I could only have
said it for the third time! But he followed
me, he frightened me, he took away from me
all the little will of my own that I had. He
made me speak as he wished me to speak
and go where he wished me to go. No, no,
no—don't come to me, uncle; don't say
anything. He is gone; he is dead—I have got
my release; I have given my pardon!
Oh, if I could only go away and hide
somewhere! All people's eyes seem to look
through me; all people's words seem to
threaten me. My heart has been weary
ever since I was a young woman; and all
these long, long years, it has never got any
rest. Hush! the man in the shop—I forgot
the man in the shop. He will hear us; let
us talk in a whisper. What made me break
out so? I'm always wrong. Oh me! I'm
wrong when I speak; I'm wrong when I
say nothing; wherever I go and whatever I
do, I'm not like other people. I seem never
to have grown up in my mind, since I was a
little child. Hark! the man in the shop is
moving—has he heard me? Oh, Uncle
Joseph! do you think he has heard me?"

Looking hardly less startled than his niece,
Uncle Joseph assured her that the door was
solid, that the man's place in the shop was at
some distance from it, and that it was impossible,
even if he heard voices in the parlour,
that he could also distinguish any words
that were spoken in it.

"You are sure of that? " she whispered,
hurriedly. " Yes, yes, you are sure of that,
or you would not have told me so, would
you? We may go on talking now. Not
about my married life: that is buried and
past. Say that I had some years of sorrow
and suffering, which I deserved,—say that I
had other years of quiet, when I was living
in service, with masters and mistresses who
were often kind to me when my fellow-
servants were not,—say just that much about
my life, and it is saying enough. The trouble
that I am in now, the trouble that brings me
to you, goes back further than the years we
have been talking about—goes back, back,
back, Uncle Joseph, to the distant day when
we last met."

"Goes back all through the sixteen years!"
exclaimed the old man, incredulously. " Goes
back, Sarah, even to the Long Ago!"