THE MAJOR S STORY. 277 



ground in the summer months, except in one spot, just in 

 front of the library windows, where it used to lie and 

 sleep in the grass, as if it loved the old place. And if 

 sunshine loved it, why should not I ? 



" General Lewis was one of the pleasant, old-fashioned 

 men, now quite gone out of memory, as well as out of ex- 

 istence. He loved his horses, his dogs, his house, his 

 punch. He loved his nephew Tom, uncouth, rough cub 

 that he was; but above horses, dogs, house, or all to- 

 gether, he loved his daughter Sarah, and I loved her too. 



" Yes, you may look at me as you will, I loved Sarah 

 Lewis; and, by all the gods, I love her now as I loved her 

 then, and as I shall love her if I meet her again. 



" Call it folly, call it boyish, call it an old man's whim, 

 an old man's second childhood, I care not by what name 

 you call it; it is enough that to-night the image of that 

 young girl stands before me splendidly beautiful in all the 

 holiness of her young glad life, and I could bow down on 

 my knees and worship her now again. 



" Why did I say again ? For forty years I have not 

 ceased to worship her. If I kneel to pray in the morn- 

 ing, she passes between me and God. If I would read 

 the prayers at evening twilight, she looks up at me from 

 the page. If I would worship on a Sabbath morning in 

 the church, she looks down on me from some unfathom- 

 able distance, some unapproachable height, and I pray to 

 her as if she were my hope, my heaven. 



" Sometimes in the winter nights I feel a coldness steal- 

 ing over me, and icy fingers are feeling about my heart, 

 as if to grasp and still it. I lie calmly, quietly, and I think 

 my hour is at hand ; and through the gloom, and through 

 the mists and films that gather over my vision, I see her 

 afar off, still the same angel in the distant heaven, and I 



