Nobody

"Why," said Lois, "an eagle never grows old!"

"Is that it! But I wish you would go on a little further, Miss Lothrop.You spoke of hymn-writers having a different standpoint, and of theirwords as more cheerful than the utterances of other poets. Do you know,I had never thought other poets were not cheerful, until now; and Icertainly never got the notion that hymns were an enlivening sort ofliterature. I thought they dealt with the shadowy side of life almostexclusively."

"Well – yes, perhaps they do," said Lois; "but they go kindling beaconseverywhere to light it up; and it is the beacons you see, and not thedarkness. Now the secular poets turn that about. They deal with thebrightest things they can find; but, to change the figure, they cannotkeep the minor chord out of their music."

Mr. and Mrs. Lenox looked at each other.

"Do you mean to say," said the latter, "that the hymn-writers do notuse the minor key? They write in it, or they sing in it, more properly, altogether!"

"Yes," said Lois, into whose cheeks a slight colour was mounting; "yes, perhaps; but it is with the blast of the trumpet and the clash of thecymbals of triumph. There may be the confession of pain, but the cry ofvictory is there too!"

"Victory – over what?" said Mrs. Lenox rather scornfully,

"Over pain, for one thing," said Lois; "and over loss, and weariness, and disappointment."

"You will have to confirm your words by examples again, Lois," said

Mrs. Barclay. "We do not all know hymn literature as well as you do."

"I never saw anything of all that in hymns," said Mrs. Lenox. "Theyalways sound a little, to me, like dirges."

Lois hesitated. The cart was plodding along through the smooth lanes atthe rate of less than a mile an hour, the oxen swaying from side toside with their slow, patient steps. The level country around laysleepily still under the hot afternoon sun; it was rarely that anyhuman stir was to be seen, save only the ox driver walking beside thecart. He walked beside the cart, not the oxen; evidently lending acurious ear to what was spoken in the company; on which account alsothe progress of the vehicle was a little less lively than it might havebeen.

"My Cynthy's writ a lot o' hymns," he remarked just here. "I neverheerd no trumpets in 'em, though. I don' know what them other thingsis."

"Cymbals?" said Lois. "They are round, thin plates of metal, Mr. Sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes themtogether, at certain parts of the music – as you would slap the palms ofyour hands."

"Doos, hey? I want to know! And what doos they sound like?"

"I can't tell," said Lois. "They sound shrill, and sweet, and gay."

"But that's cur'ous sort o' church music!" said the farmer.

"Now, Miss Lothrop, – you must let us hear the figurative cymbals," Mr.

Lenox reminded her.

"Do!" said Mrs. Barclay.

"There cannot be much of it," opined Mrs. Lenox.

"On the contrary," said Lois; "there is so much of it that I am at aloss where to begin.

'I love yon pale blue sky; it is the floor
Of that glad home where I shall shortly be;
A home from which I shall go out no more,
From toil and grief and vanity set free.

'I gaze upon yon everlasting arch,
Up which the bright stars wander as they shine;
And, as I mark them in their nightly march,
I think how soon that journey shall be mine!

'Yon silver drift of silent cloud, far up
In the still heaven – through you my pathway lies:
Yon rugged mountain peak – how soon your top
Shall I behold beneath me, as I rise!

'Not many more of life's slow-pacing hours,
Shaded with sorrow's melancholy hue;
Oh what a glad ascending shall be ours,
Oh what a pathway up yon starry blue!

'A journey like Elijah's, swift and bright,
Caught gently upward to an early crown,
In heaven's own chariot of all-blazing light,
With death untasted and the grave unknown.'"

"That's not like any hymn I ever heard," remarked Mrs. Lenox, after apause had followed the last words.

"That is a hymn of Dr. Bonar's," said Lois. "I took it merely becauseit came first into my head. Long ago somebody else wrote something verylike it —

'Ye stars are but the shining dust
Of my divine abode;
The pavement of those heavenly courts
Where I shall see my God.

'The Father of unnumbered lights
Shall there his beams display;
And not one moment's darkness mix
With that unvaried day.'

Do you hear the cymbals, Mrs. Lenox?"

There came here a long breath, it sounded like a breath of satisfactionor rest; it was breathed by Mrs. Armadale. In the stillness of theirprogress, the slowly revolving wheels making no noise on the smoothroad, and the feet of the oxen falling almost soundlessly, they allheard it; and they all felt it. It was nothing less than an echo ofwhat Lois had been repeating; a mute "Even so!" – probably unconscious, and certainly undesigned. Mrs. Lenox glanced that way. There was afar-off look on the old worn face, and lines of peace all about thelips and the brow and the quiet folded hands. Mrs. Lenox did not knowthat a sigh came from herself as her eyes turned away.

Her husband eyed the three women curiously. They were a study to him, albeit he hardly knew the grammar of the language in which so manythings seemed to be written on their faces. Mrs. Armadale's features,if strong, were of the homeliest kind; work-worn and weather-worn, toboot; yet the young man was filled with reverence as he looked from thehands in their cotton gloves, folded on her lap, to the hard featuresshaded and framed by the white sun-bonnet. The absolute, profound calmwas imposing to him; the still peace of the spirit was attractive. Helooked at his wife; and the contrast struck even him. Her face wasmurky. It was impatience, in part, he guessed, which made it so; but why was she impatient? It was cloudy with unhappiness; and she ought tobe very happy, Mr. Lenox thought; had she not everything in the worldthat she cared about? How could there be a cloud of unrest anddiscontent on her brow, and those displeased lines about her lips? Hiseye turned to Lois, and lingered as long as it dared. There was peacetoo, very sunny, and a look of lofty thought, and a brightness thatseemed to know no shadow; though at the moment she was not smiling.

"Are you not going on, Miss Lothrop?" he said gently; for he felt Mrs.Barclay's eye upon him. And, besides, he wanted to provoke the girl tospeak more.

"I could go on till I tired you," said Lois.

"I do not think you could," he returned pleasantly. "What can we dobetter? We are in a most pastoral frame of mind, with pastoralsurroundings; poetry could not be better accompanied."

"When one gets excited in talking, perhaps one had better stop," Loissaid modestly.

"On the contrary! Then the truth will come out best."