could not actively attend to his own feelings for long, since he was busy feeling. Something from outside was beginning to call to him—no echo of his own voice, no sense of his own appreciation of romantic surroundings, but something apart from him—a star that sang. From the amber of the light in the sky above Brixham it sang.
Love was dawning for him, and in the light of that uprising sun the shining and glow of his other aims, which had so filled his mind to-day, burned like the quenched lights of heaven. Even Lucia's appreciation of them, her understanding of them, her instinct that led her so unerringly to show himself to himself, faded, and it was she who mattered, she of the golden hair and enraptured eye and beautiful soul. Tremblingly he dared to hope, too, that something of this dawn-light was gilding the sky for her; she could scarcely have divined him so surely if he had been indifferent to her. And he did not come to her empty-handed: their aims were one, and on the material plane of rank and riches he could give her what it was idle to despise.
Yet how little all that would be to her—she who with her beautiful noble nature made of that narrow home, that strip of garden, something royal and splendid. The big scale was hers, and in nothing was that more wonderfully shown than in her dealing with little things. How tiresome, how cramping and paralyzing must that life with the two elderly aunts have been to any with large tastes and fine feelings, who had not also courage and character and a great heart! It was a touching and beautiful thing to see her tenderness and affectionate solicitude for Aunt Cathie, who to the general eye, though kindly disposed, appeared to be a very gruff and tough old lady. Lucia had broken off what he felt certain was to her a most absorbing talk, not only without impatience, but with such kindly welcome for her aunt when she returned from the inspection of the broad beans. She had scolded her gently for not putting on her hat when going out into the sunshine, and blamed herself for not having seen that she had done so. Then she dragged up a basket-chair for her, took the cushion out of that in which she had been sitting to make a "soft back" for her aunt, and with gaiety and laughter talked of the hundred trivialities that made up the elder woman's life and interests. She had not allowed herself to be benumbed by what she frankly confessed was a very provincial town; she had kept her light shining, and not suffered it to burn dim or get quenched by the unoxidized atmosphere. That was courage;
