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Through the tragedy of this speech I was conscious of a faint suggestion of comfort, a far-off glimmer, as of unseen home-lights on a midnight sky.

Would you not like to rekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not too late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the memory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from your anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not call back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in those awful moments you struck her!

Outside in the pitch-darkness of the night the rain beat against the window-panes like some poor beggar imploring to come in; and inside it was so cosy and bright with the warmth and cheer of home-loves and home-lights that Joyce was not sure, after all, that she could leave such a shelter even to be a guest at the Little Colonel's house party.

A great bowl of pink and yellow chrysanthemums from Brandon's old garden and trailing cedar and ferns and red-berried holly added to the cheer. Soon our home-lights streamed from the broad windows out across the water, and some faint glow must have touched that lonely tomb on shore.

The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly, as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night. Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the home-lights deepened her sense of desolation.

When it got dark he urged the horses and tried to control his impatience. Later he felt his heart beat as he drove round the corner of a shadowy bluff and saw his home-lights twinkle across the snow. A hired man came out to take the team, he got down, nearly too numbed to move, and as he stumbled up the steps Sadie met him with a cry of delight.

And night came; and now the wind lay dead; and upon the brooding earth, spangled with home-lights over hill and vale, the stars gazed calmly down. The steady, powerful droning of the power-plant rose, blent with the soothing murmur of the rapids and the river. "Seems like a lullaby doesn't it, dearest?" murmured Allan. "You know it won't be long now before it's good-by and good night."