ut it, as quietly as Nicholas did on that "thrilling" occasion. Perhaps
he was thinking of that, for he smiled as he asked, "Hard or soft?"

Rose evidently had forgotten that the family of Squeers ever existed,
for she answered: "Hard, please," in a voice to match. "I'm glad to see
you doing that," she added, taking courage from his composure and going
as straight to her point as could be expected of a woman.

"And I am very glad to do it."

"I don't mean making pens, but the romance I advised," and she touched
the closely written page before him, looking as if she would like to
read it.

"That is my abstract on a lecture on the circulation of the blood,"
he answered, kindly turning it so that she could see. "I don't write
romances I'm living one," and he glanced up with the happy, hopeful
expression which always made her feel as if he was heaping coals of fire
on her head.

"I wish you wouldn't look at me in that way it fidgets me," she said a
little petulantly, for she had been out riding, and knew that she did
not present a "spiritual" appearance after the frosty air had reddened
nose as well as cheeks.

"I'll try to remember. It does itself before I know it. Perhaps this may
mend matters." And, taking out the blue glasses he sometimes wore in the
wind, he gravely put them on.

Rose could not help laughing, but his obedience only aggravated her, for
she knew he could observe her all the better behind his ugly screen.

"No, it won't they are not becoming, and I don't want to look blue when
I do not feel so," she said, finding it impossible to guess what he
would do next or to help enjoying his peculiarities.

"But you don't to me, for in spite of the goggles everything is
rose-colored now." And he pocketed the glasses without a murmur at the
charming inconsistency of his idol.

"Really, Mac, I'm tired of this nonsense, it worries me and wastes your
time."

"Never worked harder. But does it really trouble you to know I love
you?" he asked anxiously.

"Don't you see how cross it makes me?" And she walked away, feeling that
things were not going as she intended to have them at all.

"I don't mind the thorns if I get the rose at last, and I still hope I
may, some ten years hence," said this persistent suitor, quite undaunted
by the prospect of a "long wait."

"I think it is rather hard to be loved whether I like it or not,"
objected Rose, at a loss how to make any headway against such
indomitable hopeful