are you addressing your imaginary
Boffinses? Come, Ruthie, I can't have that! Say 'we,' and I'll face
the responsibilities and talk it all out; but I won't have anything
to do with 'you!'"

"Won't you?" said Ruth, with piteous demureness. "How can I say
'we,' then?"

"You little cat! How you can scratch!"

"There are such great things to be done in the world Dakie," Ruth
said seriously, when they had got over that with a laugh that lifted
her nicely by the "we" question. "I can't help thinking of it."

"O," said Dakie, with significant satisfaction. "We're getting on
better. Well?"

"Do you know what Hazel Ripwinkley is doing? And what Luclarion
Grapp has done? Do you know how they are going among poor people, in
dreadful places,--really living among them, Luclarion is,--and
finding out, and helping, and showing how? I thought of that
to-night, when they talked about living in cities and villages.
Luclarion has gone away down to the very bottom of it. And somehow,
one can't feel satisfied with only reaching half-way, when one
knows--and might!"

"Do you mean, Ruthie, that you and I might go and _live_ in such
places? Do you think I could take you there?"

"I don't know, Dakie," Ruth answered, forgetting in her earnestness,
to blush or hesitate for what he said;--"but I feel as if we ought
to reach down, somehow,--_away_ down! Because that, you see, is the
_most_. And to do only a little, in an easy way, when we are made so
strong to do; wouldn't it be a waste of power, and a missing of the
meaning? Isn't it the 'much' that is required of us, Dakie?"

They were under the tall hedge of the Holabird "parcel of ground,"
on the Westover slope, and close to the home gates. Dakie Thayne put
his arm round Ruth as she said that, and drew her to him.

"We will go and be neighbors somewhere, Ruthie. And we will make as
big a Horseshoe as we can."

XXII.

MORNING GLORIES.

And Desire?

Do you think I have passed her over lightly in her troubles? Or do
you think I am making her out to have herself passed over them
lightly?

Do you think it is hardly to be believed that she should have turned
round from these shocks and pains that bore down so heavily and all
at once upon her, and taken kindly to the living with old Uncle
Titus and Rachel Froke in the Greenley Street house, and going down
to Luclarion Grapp's to help wash little children's faces, and teach
them how to have innocent good times? Do you thi