The needle has
wavered, but it has never shaken off its allegiance; that would be
against nature, and is therefore impossible; and so it is with the
heart. It is the eves that he loved as a lad which he sees through the
gathering darkness of his death-bed; it is a chance but that he will
always adore the star which first came to share his loneliness in this
shadowed world above all the shining multitudes in heaven.
And, though it is not every watcher who will find it, early or late,
that star may rise for him, as it did for Arthur now. A man may meet a
face which it is quite beyond his power to forget, and be touched of
lips that print their kiss upon his very heart. Yes, the star may
rise, to pursue its course, perhaps beyond the ken of his horizon, or
only to set again before he has learnt to understand its beauty--
rarely, very rarely, to shed its perfect light upon him for all his
time of watching. The star may rise and set; the sweet lips whose
touch still thrills him after so many years may lie to-day
"Beyond the graveyard's barren wall,"
or, worse still, have since been sold to some richer owner.
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