And once I was much,—very much to him! His Mamie, his poor Queen Mamie,—dearer, he used to say, than all the world to him,—I don't see how he can like it so well up there as to forget her. Though Roy was a very good boy. But this poor, wicked little Mamie,—why, I fall to pitying her as if she were some one else, and wish that some one would cry over her a little. I can't cry.

Roy used to say a thing—I have not the words, but it was like this,—that one must be either very young or very ungenerous, if one could find time to pity one's self.

I have lain for two nights, with my eyes open all night long. I thought that perhaps I might see him. I have been praying for a touch, a sign, only for something to break the silence into which he has gone. But there is no answer, none. The light burns blue, and I see at last that it is morning, and go down stairs alone, and so the day begins.

Something of Mrs. Browning's has been keeping a dull mechanical time in my brain all day.

"God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols . . . . . . albeit
He brake them to our faces, and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white."

But why must He take them? And why should He keep them page 13 there? Shall we ever see them framed in their glorious gloom? Will He let us touch them then? Or must we stand like a poor worshipper at a cathedral, looking up at his pictured saint afar off upon the other side?

Has every thing stopped just here? Our talks together in the twilight, our planning and hoping and dreaming together; our walks and rides and laughing; our reading and singing and loving,—these then are all gone out forever?

God forgive the words! but Heaven will never be Heaven to mo without them.