s to be on
you--as the feller says." And John put his arm about Lycurgus Mason,
as they walked out of the kitchen, and Jane reached for her gingham
apron. Then life began for Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay in earnest.

CHAPTER IX

Forty thousand words--and that is the number we have piled up in this
story--is a large number of words to string together without a
heroine. That is almost as bad as the dictionary, in which He and She
are always hundreds of pages apart and never meet,--not even in the
"Z's" at the end,--which is why the dictionary is so unpopular,
perhaps. But this is the story of a man, and naturally it must have
many heroines. For you know men--they are all alike! First, Mrs. Mary
Barclay was a heroine--you saw her face, strong and clean and sharply
chiselled with a great purpose; then Miss Lucy--black-eyed,
red-cheeked, slender little Miss Lucy--was a heroine, but she married
General Ward; and then Ellen Culpepper was a heroine, but she
fluttered out of the book into the sunlight, and was gone; and then
came Jane Mason,--and you have seen her girlish beauty, and you will
see it develop into gentle womanhood; but the real heroine,--of the
real story,--you have not seen her face. You have heard her name, and
have seen her moving through these pages with her back consciously
turned to you--for being a shy minx, she had no desire to intrude
until she was properly introduced. And now we will whirl her around
that you may have a good look at her.

Let us begin at the ground: as to feet--they are not too small--say
three and a half in size. And they support rather short legs--my
goodness, of course she has legs--did you think her shoes were pinned to
her over-skirt? Her legs carry around a plump body,--not fat--why,
certainly not--who ever heard of a fat heroine (the very best a heroine
can do for comfort is to be plump)--and so beginning the sentence over
again, being a plump little body, there is a neck to account for--a neck
which we may look at, but which is so exquisite that it would be hardly
polite to consider it in terms of language. Only when we come to the
chin that tips the oval of the face may we descend to language, and even
then we must rise and flick the red mouth with, but a passing word. But
this much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up--not much--but a
little (Bob used to say, just to be good and out of the way)! That,
however, is mere personal opinion, and of little importance