Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/271

Rh said Ally, dreamily, "and I think he does. I often feel conscious of him, and in very hot days the wood purrs sometimes a little as my crystals do. They are of kin."

"Oh, Ally, what a room! what a room!" I exclaimed. It was all I could say. The vivid, intense personality of the room overpowered me. It seemed strange that they could all be living a quiet every-day life in such surroundings.

"I 'd love just to make a whole house like it," said Ally, sighing. The bareness of the parsonage was a grief to her; her artistic sense demanded harmony throughout.

"You shall, my Ally," I whispered, and forgetting that we were not alone, I folded her in my arms.

There is but a brief story left to tell of Ally's life and mine. I mean that the story which I shall tell is brief. When happiness begins, history stops. There is, however, in "Stonie's" life one more incident which belongs rightfully to the readers of this story. Ally and I were married before that year's apple blossoms had all fallen. There was no reason why we should wait; and Jim had made his one last request of us, that we would go with him to Europe on his way to India. Very earnestly he begged the Dominie and Mrs. Allen to go with us; but the old lovers refused. "We are too old," they said. "The cities of this world do not draw us as they did. We expect very soon to see a fairer one."