t get morbid, honey," answered her older sister calmly. "It
isn't natural for a young healthy little body like you to have such
gloomy notions."

"Last night," continued Page, "I got up out of bed and sat by the
window a long time. And everything was so still and beautiful, and the
moonlight and all--and I said right out loud to myself,

"My breath to Heaven in vapour goes--

You know those lines from Tennyson:

"My breath to Heaven in vapour goes,
May my soul follow soon."

I said it right out loud just like that, and it was just as though
something in me had spoken. I got my journal and wrote down, 'Yet in a
few days, and thee, the all-beholding sun shall see no more.' It's from
Thanatopsis, you know, and I thought how beautiful it would be to leave
all this world, and soar and soar, right up to higher planes and be at
peace. Laura, dearest, do you think I ever ought to marry?"

"Why not, girlie? Why shouldn't you marry. Of course you'll marry some
day, if you find--"

"I should like to be a nun," Page interrupted, shaking her head,
mournfully.

"--if you find the man who loves you," continued Laura, "and whom
you--you admire and respect--whom you love. What would you say, honey,
if--if your sister, if I should be married some of these days?"

Page wheeled about in her chair.

"Oh, Laura, tell me," she cried, "are you joking? Are you going to be
married? Who to? I hadn't an idea, but I thought--I suspected."

"Well," observed Laura, slowly, "I might as well tell you--some one
will if I don't--Mr. Jadwin wants me to marry him."

"And what did you say? What did you say? Oh, I'll never tell. Oh,
Laura, tell me all about it."

"Well, why shouldn't I marry him? Yes--I promised. I said yes. Why
shouldn't I? He loves me, and he is rich. Isn't that enough?"

"Oh, no. It isn't. You must love--you do love him?"

"I? Love? Pooh!" cried Laura. "Indeed not. I love nobody."

"Oh, Laura," protested Page earnestly. "Don't, don't talk that way. You
mustn't. It's wicked."

Laura put her head in the air.

"I wouldn't give any man that much satisfaction. I think that is the
way it ought to be. A man ought to love a woman more than she loves
him. It ought to be enough for him if she lets him give her everything
she wants in the world. He ought to serve her like the old
knights--give up his whole life to satisfy some whim of hers; and it's
her part, if she likes, to be cold and distant. That's my idea of lov