He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a deep, gentle voice, and his eyes and hair were kind of tawny brown. I remember him very distinctly because he was the last person I saw before my blindness came. He was standing in the garden saying good-bye to me, and I was wondering why such a fine able-bodied man should paint pictures for a living when the darkness began to come. I thought it was just the heat or something, and I didn't say anything about it; but when he was gone I started into the house and I found I was blind. "

"Oh!" I shuddered, "how terribly sudden. "

"Yes, it was sudden, and the worst of it all was that I knew after all my long waiting I'd never see Daisy when she comes back. You see, my dear, I'm waiting for my youngest daughter. Whenever she comes back she'll find her mother waiting for her in the old home. Sometimes I think if she had only been a little more patient when her father refused to let her go to the city to studyhe might have been brought round to it. But she was determined and enthusiastic, like all young folks I guess.

It would

oh,

be a dull world if they weren't so, wouldn't it? She told him she would surely go some day, and he grew very angry and said dreadful bitter words that he did not mean I know he didn't mean them. He told her that if she left home against his wishes that would be the end, that she need never come back.

I ought to have spoken up then and made him see how wrong he was, but it was always my way to kind of wait on father's moods, and he usually came round to my way of thinking, sort of dismounting from his high horse in the dark you know. But I've wished many and many a time that I had spoken up and asserted Daisy's rights. That's what I ought to have done, but I guess I was always too peace-loving, and I didn't realise until she was gone that

I might have saved us all a lot of unhappiness, if I'd been a little more high-spirited. When father found she had left without a word he was terribly angry and he wouldn't talk of her to me at all, but I knew afterwards that he tried to trace her in the city, but it was no use. She had disappeared completely. Oh, those were dreary days.”

It wasn't till that last Christmas, when father had the schoolhouse picture framed and hung over the mantel I was sure he was sorry and loving. He couldn't talk about her, but when we sat down before the fire Christmas night he took my hand and said, ' It's some comfort, ain't it, mother?' and I knew just as well as if he had talked a whole chapter that his heart cried out for his baby girl, Daisy, as much as mine did. Somehow we were a good deal happier after that. He died the next fall, and I've been here ever since

"Four years? Oh, what a useless tragedy! You know what you said about your words falling like arrows? Well, that young man to whom you told the story repeated it wherever he went, and he was a great wanderer. ”

Why, bless me, did you know him? "

Yes; I heard him tell the story in a little summer camp of artists on the Scilly Isles, a part of England, you know, and he said moreover that he had vowed that if he ever found your Daisy he would bring her back to you. "Did he? God bless him! My, how little and near together this great big, wide-spread world is after all. Just to think have seen him you off there across the water. way "And- and how can I tell you? He has kept his word. He has married your Daisy and-"

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Where- where is she? the dear old voice rang

out with a penetrating agony of hope that stopped my heart's beating for an instant, but I was afraid to speak. I sank down on the ground at her knee and reached my arms around her waist.

"Where- where is she I say?

"Here, marmsie," I cried in a choking voice, using my old baby-girl name for her.

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My child, my child!" She passed her hands over my face, and as I rose and took her in my arms and kissed her again and again she murmured, "And sometimes I doubted- Lreally dared to doubt the goodness of God. Oh my child, my baby Daisy!"

Then there was a rattle at the gate and a tall tawny-haired man with the kindest eyes in the world came into the garden and encircled us both in his strong, loving arms. THE SPHERE.

A DAY IN THE MOUNTAINS.

We commenced our journey to Placid Lake, forty-two miles distant, at daybreak. The mountain air was chill and invigorating, our horses were fresh and we were soon deep in the forest. One who has never experienced it can scarcely appreciate the feeling of isolation that comes over one on finding himself on a narrow trail in the forest surrounded and shut in on all sides by tall pine trees into whose depths he can peer at times but a few yards, yet it is by no means a monotonous isolation for the wood is full of variety and abounds with life. Squirrels and chipmunks chattered and scolded us from the branches of the trees as if they would dispute our right to trespass on the property nature had provided for them. Rabbits scurried across our path. Prairie chickens flew clumsily out of our way to some neighboring boughs from which they watched us with a look

of innocent wonder. Sometimes our trail led us along the banks of the Big Blackfoot River, sometimes over precipitous mountain spurs, sometimes through deep ravines with only a narrow passage through the tangled undergrowth, sometimes across broad valleys looking for all the world like well-kept Parks with the trees set out singly or in groups in a beautiful greensward. One of these ideal retreats in the heart of the mountains appeared to be a diningroom for our noonday meal. We sat by the side of a delightful stream of clear, cool water and ate and drank with a real mountain appetite rendered keen by an early breakfast and long ride. Our dessert grew all around in a plentiful supply of huckleberries and wild strawberries.

Resuming our journey, our trail now led us up a steep mountain side, so steep we were obliged to dismount, at times, and lead our horses. Reaching the crest, we were amply repaid for our labor. This vantage afforded us a view of the surrounding country, or the surrounding forests, mile upon mile of dense forests as far as the eye could reach over mountain and valley, one vast ocean of pine trees with no sign of human life or habitation.

After feasting our eyes awhile we began our descent of the other side of the mountain, which was almost as dif. ficult as our ascent. On reaching the valley below, two or three miles of trail through matted thickets and over fallen trees brought us to the shore of Placid Lake. Our trail lay along the northern shore. A more beautiful sheet of water it would be hard to imagine. Surrounded on all sides by the pine-clad mountains, it is as placid and still as a mirror and like a mirror reflects the dark green of its surroundings till looking from shore to shore it is about impossible to distinguish between shadow and reality— to tell where the water leaves off and the wood commences. To make the picture more perfect a stag stood on the further shore

suspiciously sniffing the air.

When one of our horses

struck his foot against a rock, the stag bounded off into the depths of the woods.

One hour's ride brought us to the little secluded settlement and the ranch-house where we were to spend the night. The inhabitants do not often get a glimpse of the outside world for they are forty-two miles from the nearest postoffice and seventy miles from the nearest railway. The people are simple in their tastes and their wants are few. They live in comparative happiness far from the noise and strife of the commercial world. One can scarcely imagine that such a restful, sequestered, natural retreat could exist in this land of strenuous endeavor.

Our awival from the outside world caused quite a com. motion. We were greeted at the door of the log cabin by the whole family including numerous dogs and cats and other household pets. The children, little, ragged, towheaded urchins wild as their own surroundings, watched us stealthily from behind doors and articles of furniture but instantly disappeared if we chanced to look in their direction. Supper was hastened on our account. And such a supper! steak cut from fresh venison, home-made bread, potatoes and coffee. After our long day's ride in the invigorating mountain air, it tasted good beyond comparison.

After supper we went outside to chat and watch the sunset, the crowning glory of a glorious day in the mountains. Two colossal mountain peaks away in the west with their intervening spaces formed the pillars and gateway through which the sun made his majestic farewell amid a riot of changing glory. In the background behind the mountain portals, massive fleecy clouds had rolled themselves into a gigantic mass of mountain and valley till they looked like some fair, distant land where light and shade combined to make a scene of splendor. A land sunkissed till every