My hatred of him seemed suddenly to have taken to itself wings."-Page 83.

mured, "

thinking often of late-it is all so far behind us now, and time has passed so sweetly and softened so much our memories of past trouble and of the -the dead-I have been thinking, dear, that it would be a comfort to have the lad called Philip."

I sat for a long time thus by her side, and we talked more freely than we had ever done before, of him who lay buried by the ruined walls of Cairncross. Time had indeed softened much. We spoke of him now with gentle sorrow-as of a friend whose life had left somewhat to be desired, yet whose death had given room for naught but pity. He had been handsome and fearless and wilful-and unfortunate; our minds were closed against any harsher word. And it came about that when it was time for me to leave the room, and I bent over to kiss lightly the sleeping infant, I was glad in my heart that he was to be called Philip. Thus he was called, and though the General was his godfather at the old Dutch church, we did not conceal from him that the Philip for whom the name was given was another. It was easily within Schuyler's kindly nature to comprehend the feelings which prompted us, and I often fancied he was even the fonder of the child because of the link formed by his name with his parents' time of grief and tragic romance.

In truth we all made much of this light-haired, beautiful, imperious little boy, who from the beginning quite threw into the shade his elder and slower brother, the dusky-skinned and patient Douw. Old Mr. Stewart, in particular, became dotingly attached to the younger lad, and scarce could bear to have him out of sight the whole day long. It was a pretty spectacle indeed one which makes my old heart yearn in memory, even now-to see the simple, soft-mannered, childish patriarch gravely obeying the whims and freaks of the boy, and finding the chief delight of his waning life in being thus commanded. Some

times, to be sure, my heart smote me with the fear that poor quiet Master Douw felt keenly underneath his calm exterior this preference, and often, too, I grew nervous lest our fondness was spoiling the younger child. But it was not in us to resist him.

The little Philip died suddenly, in his sixth year, and within the month Mr. Stewart followed him. Great and overpowering as was our grief, it seemed almost perfunctory beside the heart-breaking anguish of the old man. He literally staggered and died under the blow.

There is no story in the rest of my life. The years have flowed on as peacefully, as free from tempest or excitement, as the sluggish waters of a Delft canal. No calamity has since come upon us; no great trial or large advancement has stirred the current of our pleasant existence. Having always a sufficient hold upon the present, with means to live in comfort, and tastes not leading into venturesome ways for satisfaction, it has come to be to us, in our old age, a deep delight to look backward together. We seem now to have walked from the outset hand in hand. The joys of our childhood and youth spent under one roof— the dear smoky, raftered roof, where hung old Dame Kronk's onions and corn, and perfumed herbs-are very near to us. There comes between this scene of sunlight and the not less peaceful radiance of our later life, it is true, the shadow for a time of a dark curtain. Yet-so good and generous a thing is memory— even this interruption appears now to have been but of a momentary kind, and has for us no harrowing side. As I wrote out the story, page by page, it seemed to both of us that all these trials, these tears, these bitter feuds and fights, must have happened to others, not to us so swallowed up in happiness are the griefs of those young years, and so free are our hearts from

scars.