"Nothing was right, I think. Didn't you notice how stolid they looked—and in the presence of truths and hopes so vast, that had they believed them, they must have leapt to their feet and shouted in ecstasy?"
"That would be a novelty indeed," she smiled.
"It would have been natural," he replied. "But alas! who is natural? Most people never live at first-hand. They are plagiarists. Arthur, don't be a plagiarist. It cuts the fibre of sincerity. It's like drinking stale water from a dirty cup. But there," and then came the usual comment, "let us have some music."
And Elizabeth began to play. Perhaps it was the suggestion of the Sabbath evening that made her play sweet and solemn airs from Handel. Presently she wandered into old hymn-tunes, and finally began to play "Nearer, my God, to Thee."
Suddenly she stopped, for Vickars had left the room.
"Oh, I forgot!" she cried. "I ought not to have played that."
While she spoke, her father returned. His face was pale: he held in his hand a miniature of a woman.
"Do you remember what to-day is?" he said in a soft, shaken voice. "Twenty years ago to-day. And that was the last thing she played ... and then she went ... in the night ... upon her long journey. And it all seems but an hour ago. O my child! you are so like your mother."
He kissed her forehead.
Twenty years ago, and love still fresh! Arthur bowed his head before the sacred vision. He rose to go. He felt he had no right to look on that unveiled immortal sorrow.