"—hand in hand With spirits from the shadowland,"
and to those I whisper the words of our poet, and say—
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
All I will say is, that the sun which set upon the world on the day when, for the first time, Guy and Honor linked hands, never, since nor before, went down upon any two creatures who were more thoroughly satisfied with themselves than were these two.
When Guy left Mr. Rayne's house, the evening was far spent—and such an evening! If an exclamation point cannot imply its happiness it must remain a mystery. Long after he had bade his earnest "good-night," Honor and her guardian sat together over the dying coals and chatted pleasantly. It was their custom to hold this nightly gossip no matter at how late an hour their visitors left them.
"And so that is my brave nephew for you," Henry Rayne said, as Honor stood up and placed her chair against the wall, "How do you like him?"
Like him? If he could have seen her averted face—her eyes—her mouth!
"Don't you ask an opinion a little soon?" she replied, so carelessly, that the shrewdest observer would be baffled.
"Well, I don't mean to ask you if you're crazy about him, or anything like that," Mr. Rayne said, half-laughing, "but do you take to him, do you think you will be friends? That's what I'd like to know."
"Oh," she exclaimed, disguising her excitement in a smile of surprise, "I do not doubt that, at least so far as I am concerned, I have been friends with more—with less—I mean with more—no, with less intereresting people."