deed!
For my part, I think I shall become a Mormon!"--I verily believe the
poor misinformed creature fancied that in Utah it is the ladies who are
guilty of polygamy.

Before many minutes they drew near home. There stood Mrs. Ford at the
garden-gate, looking up and down the road, with a letter in her hand.

"Something for you, John," said his mother, as they approached. "It
looks as if it came from camp.--Why, Elizabeth, look at your skirts!"

"I know it," says Lizzie, giving the articles in question a shake. "What
is it, Jack?"

"Marching orders!" cried the young man. "The regiment leaves day after
to-morrow. I must leave by the early train in the morning. Hurray!" And
he diverted a sudden gleeful kiss into a filial salute.

They went in. The two women were silent, after the manner of women who
suffer. But Jack did little else than laugh and talk and circumnavigate
the parlor, sitting first here and then there,--close beside Lizzie and
on the opposite side of the room. After a while Miss Crowe joined in his
laughter, but I think her mirth might have been resolved into articulate
heart-beats. After tea she went to bed, to give Jack; opportunity for
his last filial _epanchements_. How generous a man's intervention makes
women! But Lizzie promised to see her lover off in the morning.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Ford. "You'll not be up. John will want to
breakfast quietly."

"I shall see you off, Jack," repeated the young lady, from the
threshold.

Elizabeth went up stairs buoyant with her young love. It had dawned upon
her like a new life,--a life positively worth the living. Hereby she
would subsist and cost nobody anything. In it she was boundlessly rich.
She would make it the hidden spring of a hundred praiseworthy deeds. She
would begin the career of duty: she would enjoy boundless equanimity:
she would raise her whole being to the level of her sublime passion. She
would practise charity, humility, piety,--in fine, all the virtues:
together with certain _morceaux_ of Beethoven and Chopin. She would walk
the earth like one glorified. She would do homage to the best of men by
inviolate secrecy. Here, by I know not what gentle transition, as she
lay in the quiet darkness, Elizabeth covered her pillow with a flood of
tears.

Meanwhile Ford, down-stairs, began in this fashion. He was lounging at
his manly length on the sofa, in his slippers.

"May I light a pipe, mother?"

"Yes, my love. But please be careful of y