d the silly creature looked up at her lover with most
inconsistent satisfaction.

"Oh, the pride of women in their husbands!" said Jack, who of course
knew what she was about.

"You're not my husband, Sir. There's many a slip"----But the young girl
stopped short.

"'Twixt the cup and the lip," said Jack. "Go on. I can match your
proverb with another. 'There's many a true word,' and so forth. No, my
darling: I'm not your husband. Perhaps I never shall be. But if anything
happens to me, you'll take comfort, won't you?"

"Never!" said Lizzie, tremulously.

"Oh, but you must; otherwise, Lizzie, I should think our engagement
inexcusable. Stuff! who am I that you should cry for me?"

"You are the best and wisest of men. I don't care; you _are_."

"Thank you for your great love, my dear. That's a delightful illusion.
But I hope Time will kill it, in his own good way, before it hurts any
one. I know so many men who are worth infinitely more than I--men wise,
generous, and brave--that I shall not feel as if I were leaving you in
an empty world."

"Oh, my dear friend!" said Lizzie, after a pause, "I wish you could
advise me all my life."

"Take care, take care," laughed Jack; "you don't know what you are
bargaining for. But will you let me say a word now? If by chance I'm
taken out of the world, I want you to beware of that tawdry sentiment
which enjoins you to be 'constant to my memory.' My memory be hanged!
Remember me at my best,--that is, fullest of the desire of humility.
Don't inflict me on people. There are some widows and bereaved
sweethearts who remind me of the peddler in that horrible murder-story,
who carried a corpse in his pack. Really, it's their stock in trade. The
only justification of a man's personality is his rights. What rights has
a dead man?--Let's go down."

They turned southward and went jolting down the hill.

"Do you mind this talk, Lizzie?" asked Ford.

"No," said Lizzie, swallowing a sob, unnoticed by her companion in the
sublime egotism of protection; "I like it."

"Very well," said the young man, "I want my memory to help you. When I
am down in Virginia, I expect to get a vast deal of good from thinking
of you,--to do my work better, and to keep straighter altogether. Like
all lovers, I'm horribly selfish. I expect to see a vast deal of
shabbiness and baseness and turmoil, and in the midst of it all I'm sure
the inspiration of patriotism will sometimes fail. Then I'll think of
you.