"Did you ever see this picture that Arthur left in his room when he went away last fall?" she asked. "I don't know whether he did it himself or not."
She placed it in the light and left the room. Beth recognized it almost instantly.
"Why, it's that poem of mine that Arthur liked best of all!" she thought.
Yes, it was the very same—the grey rocks rising one above another, the broad white shore, and the lonely cottage, with the dark storm-clouds lowering above it, and the fisherman's bride at the window, pale and anxious, her sunny hair falling about her shoulders as she peered far out across the sea—the black, storm-tossed sea—and far out among the billows the tiny speck of sail that never reached the shore. Beth was no connoisseur of art, but she knew the picture before her was intensely beautiful, even sublime. There was something in it that made her feel. It moved her to tears even as Arthur's music had done. No need to tell her both came from the same hand. Besides, no one else had seen that poem but Arthur. And Arthur could paint like this, and yet she had said he had not an artist soul. She sighed faintly. Poor Arthur! Perhaps, after all, she had been mistaken. And she laid the picture carefully away among her treasures.
Her last evening at home soon came. It was a clear, chilly night, and they had a fire in the drawing-room grate. It was so cosy to sit there with her father, resting her head on his shoulders, and watching the coals glowing in the twilight.
"Beth, my child, you look so much happier lately. Are you really so happy?" he said, after they had been talking for a while.
"Oh, I think life is so very happy!" said Beth, in a buoyant tone. "And when you love Jesus it is so much sweeter, and somehow I like everyone so much and everybody is so kind. Oh, I think life is grand!"
Dr. Woodburn was a godly man, and his daughter's words thrilled him sweetly. He brushed away a tear she did not see, and stooped to kiss the young cheek resting on his coat-sleeve. They were silent for a few moments.
"Beth, my dear," he said in a softer tone, "Do you know, I thought that trouble last summer—over Clarence—was going to hurt you more. How is it, Beth?"
She hesitated a moment.