y of the

h to touch, if one do but stretch out the hand. This youth and maid were dreaming, and their hands were clasped, and sometimes they looked in each other's eyes-sometimes out across the fields, sloping toward sunset. The world seemed young as they, and the

to frequent speech, even with the woman he loved. He saw her, whether he sat thus beside her or whether he sat apart from her with se

the paper with glancing touch, and this picture grows before their eyes: A man and a woman, young and fair, are on a hilltop alone, looking across a meadowland, lovely with spring and blossoms and love-making of the birds; and ponds where lily-pads shine in the sun, like metal patines, floating on the pool; and a flock lying in a quiet place; and a lad plowing in

they are-what are they? They are the same; they are not the same. She is disappointed in them; not because their beauty has faded, but that their look has changed. Their faces are not haggard, nor cut with strange arabesques of pain and care, nor are they craven or vicious; but the artist speeds his hand as if at play, while every touch is bringing the faces out until they obliterate the former beauty utterly. The landscape is still dewy fresh and fair-the faces have no hint of morning in them. Faces, not bad, but lacking tenderness; expression, self-sufficient; eyes, frosty cold; and the woman'

aflame, like a burning palace; the crows are flapping tired wings toward their nests; the swallows are sporting in the air, as children do in surf of the blue se

not for ornament, but need. The woman is wrinkled, and her hair is snowy white; and the girl at the artist's side tries vainly to suppress a sob. She, too, will soon be gray, and she loves not age and decrepitude; and the face in the picture is faded, no rose-tints in the cheeks. So old and weak-old age is very pitiful. But the picture is not finished yet. Wait! Wait a little, and give the artist time. It is not evening yet. Sunset lingers a little for him. His hand runs now like a hurrying tide. He is painting faces. Why linger over

artist, with a touch quick as a happy thought, outlined a shadow, clad in tatters, and a child clad in tatters at her side; and the girl, leaning over the painting, thought the chief shadow was Death. But the artist hasted; and on a sudden, wings sprung from the shoulders of tattered mother an

, "These Loved Themselves Better Than They Loved Others;" and the woman wrote, "Their To-morrow was Failure." Under the third picture the artist wrote, "These Loved God Best and Their Neighbors as Themselves;" and the woman took the pencil from his hand and wrote, "Old Age is Very Beautiful-More

morning, and, taking the pictures, walked slowly as lovers will; and so, fading into the deepening twilight, I heard her saying, "Serving others is life at its best," and him replying, "Jesus s