box into an unjust prison cell.

L.

On the long sunny piazza of the Hygeia Mrs. Brinkley and Miss Van Hook
sat and talked in a community of interest which they had not discovered
during the summer before at Campobello, and with an equality of hearing
which the sound of the waves washing almost at their feet established
between them. In this pleasant noise Miss Van Hook heard as well as any
one, and Mrs. Brinkley gradually realised that it was the trouble of
having to lift her voice that had kept her from cultivating a very
agreeable acquaintance before. The ladies sat in a secluded corner,
wearing light wraps that they had often found comfortable at Campobello
in August, and from time to time attested to each other their
astonishment that they needed no more at Old Point in early April.

They did this not only as a just tribute to the amiable climate, but as
a relief from the topic which had been absorbing them, and to which they
constantly returned.

"No," said Mrs. Brinkley, with a sort of finality, "I think it is the
best thing that could possibly have happened to him. He is bearing it in
a very manly way, but I fancy he has felt it deeply, poor fellow. He's
never been in Boston since, and I don't believe he'd come here if he'd
any idea how many Boston people there were in the hotel--we swarm! It
would be very painful to him."

"Yes," said Miss Van Hook, "young people seem to feel those things."

"Of course he's going to get over it. That's what young people do too.
At his age he can't help being caught with every pretty face and every
pretty figure, even in the midst of his woe, and it's only a question
of time till he seizes some pretty hand and gets drawn out of it
altogether."

"I think that would be the case with my niece, too," said Miss Van Hook,
"if she wasn't kept in it by a sense of loyalty. I don't believe she
really dares much for Lieutenant Willing any more; but he sees no
society where he's stationed, of course, and his constancy is a--a
rebuke and a--a--an incentive to her. They were engaged a long time ago
just after he left West Point--and we've always been in hopes that
he would be removed to some post where he could meet other ladies and
become interested in some one else. But he never has, and so the affair
remains. It's most undesirable they should marry, and in the meantime
she won't break it off, and it's spoiling her chances in life."

"It is too bad," sighed Mrs. Brinkley, "b