y short note.

"I want you to read this, Becky. It belongs in a way to you. I don't
know what I think about it. Sometimes it seems as if I had done a
rather big thing, and as if it had been done without me at all. I
wonder if you understand what I mean--as if I had held the pen, and it
had--come---- I have sent it to the editor of one of the big
magazines. Perhaps he will send it back, and it may not seem as good
to me as it does at this moment. Let me know what you think."

Becky, finishing the letter, felt a bit forlorn. Randy, as a rule,
wrote at length about herself and her affairs. But, of course, he had
other things now to think of. She must not expect too much.

There was no time, however, in which to read the manuscript, for Cope
was saying, wistfully, "Do you think you'd mind a walk in the rain?"

"No." She gathered up her letters.

"Then we'll walk across the Common."

They shared one umbrella. And they played that it was over fifty years
ago when the Autocrat had walked with the young Schoolmistress. They
even walked arm in arm under the umbrella. They took the long path to
Boylston Street. And Cope said, "Will you take the long path with me?"

And Becky said, "Certainly."

And they both laughed. But there was no laughter in Cope's heart.

"Becky," he said, "I wish that you and I had lived a century ago in
Louisburg Square."

"If we had lived then, we shouldn't be living now."

"But we should have had our--happiness----"

"And I should have worn lovely flowing silk skirts. Not short things
like this, and little bonnets with flowers inside, and velvet
mantles----"

"And you would have walked on my arm to church. And we would have
owned one of those old big houses--and your smile would have greeted me
across the candles every day at dinner----" He was making it rather
personal, but she humored his fancy.

"And you would have worn a blue coat, and a bunch of big seals, and a
furry high hat----"

"You are thinking all the time about what we would wear," he
complained; "you haven't any sense of romance, Becky----"

"Well, of course, it is all make-believe."

"Yes, it is all--make-believe," he said, and walked in silence after
that.

The wind blew cold and they stopped in a pastry shop on Boylston Street
and had a cup of tea. Becky ate little cream cakes with fluted crusts,
and drank Orange Pekoe.

"I am glad you don't wear flowing silks and velvet mantles," said
Arc