He selected one and kissed it, and they walked together side by side. The preacher had said, "Take down the shutters which darken heart and soul; admit the light which purifies and sweetens." It was done, and the light was shining in Basil's heart. He clung to the little hand which was clasped in his. In that good hour it was indeed a Divine link which re-united him once more to what was best and noblest. The shadows were dying away. Dark days were before him, strange experiences were to be his, but in the darkest day of the future a star was always to shine. "Annette, Annette, Annette," he whispered. "I will make an endeavour to see you. I will never again lose faith. A weight has gone from my heart."
"Let me kiss the flower where you kissed it," said Edith.
He put it to her lips, and she kissed it, and raised her face innocently. He stooped and kissed her lips.
"I think," said Edith contemplatively, "I like you better than any one else except mother and father and baby angel."
The office of the _Princetown Argus_ was now an extensive building all on one floor; architects had not yet reached higher flights. The door from the street opened midway between two rooms, the one to the right being that in which advertisements and orders for subscriptions were taken, the one to the left being used for book-keeper, editor, and reporters indiscriminately. The reporting staff did a great part of their work standing; there were only a desk and a stool for the book-keeper, who assisted in the reading of proofs, and a table and two chairs for the accommodation of the editor and sub-editor. Adjoining these two rooms in the rear was the composing-room of the newspaper, in the rear of that the jobbing-room, in the rear of that the press room. The living apartments of the editor and his little family were quite at the end of the building, and were really commodious--sitting-room, kitchen, and two sleeping-rooms, one for little Edith, the other for her parents. In the sitting-room there was a piano upon which every member of the family could play with one finger, there were framed chromos on the walls, and sufficient accommodation in the shape of chairs and tables. The mantelpiece was embellished with an extensive array of photographs of grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins; and the floor was covered with red baize. Taking it altogether it was an elegant abode for a new goldfield, and Edith's garden, upon which the window of her bedroom looked out, imparted to it an air of refinement and sweetness exceedingly pleasant to contemplate. When Edith, still holding Basil's hand, passed through the business rooms and entered the sitting-room, the happy editor and proprietor was alone, his wife being busy in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Domestic servants were the rarest of birds in Princetown; indeed there were none in the private establishments, for as soon as a girl or woman made her appearance in the township there was a "rush" for her, and before she had been there a week she had at least a dozen offers of marriage. A single woman was worth her weight in gold--Princetown was a veritable paradise for spinsters of any age, from fifteen to fifty. Small wonder that they turned up their noses at domestic service, when by merely crooking their little finger they could become their own mistress, picking and choosing from a host of amorous gold diggers. Free and easy was the wedding; the eating and drinking, the popping of corks, the drive through the principal streets, the indiscriminate invitations to all, the dancing at night, with more popping of corks and the cracking of revolvers in the open air to proclaim to the world that an "event" of supreme importance was being celebrated--all tended to show the value of woman as a marketable commodity. Two or three miles away, in a gully upon a hill, was the canvas tent to which the bridegroom bore his bride an hour or two this or that side of midnight, literally bore her often because of the open shafts which dotted the road; and there the married life commenced. It is a lame metaphor to say that woman ruled the roast; she ruled everything, and was bowed down to and worshipped as woman never was before in the history of the world.