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“‘And he surely will,’ said her grandfather, ‘for he came to me this morning, like the honorable fellow he is, and obtained permission to do so.’

“‘Grandpa!’ exclaimed Mildred; and as she looked up at him there was no beauty in any sweet-pea blossom, or in any other flower on earth, which could equal the brightness and the beauty of her face.

“The pain faded out of the consciousness of Miss Amanda. ‘And this is the way it ends!’ she murmured. ‘This is the way it ends. John’s granddaughter and his grandson.’ And now it was not pain, but a quiet happiness, which pervaded her consciousness.

“The grandfather and granddaughter rose from the rustic bench and walked slowly toward the house. Miss Amanda looked after them, and blessed them; then she gazed upon the sweet peas on the ground; then she looked once more upon the old dial, still bravely marking each sunny hour; and then, slowly and gradually, Miss Amanda lost consciousness, without saying to herself, ‘Seven o’clock’ or ‘Fifty years’ or any other period of time.

“That is the end,” said the young lady.

“And quite time!” exclaimed the Master of the House. “Madam,” he said, turning to his wife, “did you know of all this knowledge of which your daughter seems possessed–of boy’s nature, and woman’s love, and the human heart, and all the rest of it? I can’t fathom her with my longest line!”

“You may as well give up all idea of that sort of sounding,” said the Mistress of the House. “There is no line long enough to fathom the human heart.”

“I am thinking,” said John Gayther, as he rattled the seeds in the pan, “whether it was worth while for Amanda to become conscious for so short a time, and just to hear a tale like that.”

“Was it worth while to learn that the man she had wanted to love her had really loved her?” asked the Daughter of the House, eagerly.

“It doesn’t seem the sort of love to wait fifty years to hear about,” said John. “I don’t like the way they have in novels of making folks keep back things that men and women couldn’t help telling.”

“Then you don’t like my story, John,” said the Daughter of the House, in a disappointed tone.

“Indeed, but I do, miss,” he replied quickly. “As a story it is just perfect; but as real doings it doesn’t pan out square. But then, it is meant for a story, and it couldn’t be better or more unlike other stories told here. Nobody could have thought that out that hadn’t a deep mind.”

The young lady looked critically at John, but she saw he really meant what he said, and she was satisfied.