But some start to see the roses already withering, sit down and weep and
watch their decay, until at length the aged flowers hang drooping all
around them, and lo! their hearts are withered also, and when they rise
they turn their backs on the holy of holies, and their feet toward the
gate.

Juliet was proud of her Paul, and loved him as much as she was yet
capable of loving. But she had thought they were enough for each other,
and already, although she was far from acknowledging it to herself, she
had, in the twilight of her thinking, begun to doubt it. Nor can she be
blamed for the doubt. Never man and woman yet succeeded in being all in
all to each other.

It were presumption to say that a lonely God would be enough for
Himself, seeing that we can know nothing of God but as He is our Father.
What if the Creator Himself is sufficient to Himself in virtue of His
self-existent _creatorship_? Let my reader think it out. The lower we go
in the scale of creation, the more independent is the individual. The
richer and more perfect each of a married pair is in the other relations
of life, the more is each to the other. For us, the children of eternal
love, the very air our spirits breathe, and without which they can not
live, is the eternal life; for us, the brothers and sisters of a
countless family, the very space in which our souls can exist, is the
love of each and every soul of our kind.

Such were not Juliet's thoughts. To her such would have seemed as unreal
as unintelligible. To her they would have looked just what some of my
readers will pronounce them, not in the least knowing what they are. She
was suddenly roused from her painful reverie by the pulling up of
Helen's ponies, with much clatter and wriggling recoil, close beside