"How happily we walked up and down the shady lanes of that little village! For us the birds sang sweetly. We took delight in our flowers and everything about us. In the evening we would enjoy the sunsets, returning home arm in arm in the afterglow, to sit in the cool of the evening on the piazza and to listen to the wind as it sighed through the pines. What music they made for us! We compared it with what poets of all ages had sung of them, and went to sleep, lulled to rest by the wind through their soft boughs."
He paused again, evidently thinking of the happy time.
"How can I tell you," he resumed, "of the life that went on in that simple old farmhouse? Our pleasant wood-fire on the hearth; a few photographs from the old masters on the walls; our favorite books of poetry and fiction, which we read together during the long winter evenings, while the pine-trees sighed outside, and all was so comfortable and cozy within; or the lovely walks in spring and summer, through the byways of the pretty little village, with its hedgerows, blackberries, and wild flowers. How we watched for the first violets, and what joy the early blossoms gave us! What pleasure we took in those delightful years, and how smoothly our lives ran on! Each day I went to the city, and was always cheered by the thought that my sweet wife would be at the station to meet me. How pure she looked in the summer evening, clad in her thin white dresses, with a silver fan and brooch, her dark hair and eyes like those of a startled fawn!
"Well, I need not dwell longer on all this. It was only for a few short years, when one cruel, cold day, about the happy Christmas-time, she was taken ill, and grew steadily worse, and all that could be done for her would not save her. She died. I can see her now--her dark hair laid back on the pillow, and the peaceful, happy smile on her face. We buried her beneath the snow, in the old graveyard overlooking the river, and I went home broken-hearted."
I heard the poor fellow sigh, and for a time he was silent as the carriage went on through the snow. "What can be the connection of this queer craft with what he is telling me?" I thought. When he resumed, he said:
"For months I tried to live on in the little house, but life became terrible. In the evenings, as I sat by the pleasant log-fire, I would imagine I heard her footsteps on the stairs, and her voice calling me. I did my best to conquer my grief, but it was of no use. The light seemed gone out of my life. At last I could stand it no longer, and I moved all my worldly possessions to another house in the same village. I could not bear to think of going away from the place entirely.