CHAPTER LVI.
A CATASTROPHE.
One winter evening, as soon as his work was over for the day, Joseph locked the door of his smithy, washed himself well, put on clean clothes, and, taking his violin, set out for Testbridge: Mary was expecting him to tea.

It was the afternoon of a holiday, and she had closed early.
Was there ever a happier man than Joseph that night as he strode along the footpath?
A day of invigorating and manly toil behind him, folded up in the sense of work accomplished; a clear sky overhead, beginning to breed stars; the pale amber hope of to-morrow's sunrise low down in the west; a frosty air around him, challenging to the surface the glow of the forge which his day's labor had stored in his body; his heart and brain at rest with his father in heaven; his precious violin under his arm; before him the welcoming parlor, where two sweet women waited his coming, one of them the brightest angel, in or out of heaven, to him; and the prospect of a long evening of torrent-music between them--who, I repeat, could have been more blessed, heart, and soul, and body, than Joseph Jasper?
His being was like an all-sided lens concentrating all joys in the one heart of his consciousness.

God only knows how blessed he could make us if we would but let him! He pressed his violin-case to his heart, as if it were a living thing that could know that he loved it.
Before he reached the town, the stars were out, and the last of the sunset had faded away.

Earth was gone, and heaven was all.

Joseph was now a reader, and read geology and astronomy: "I've got to do with them all!" he said to himself, looking up.