m at intervals, "Bless the boy!" or, "What a pair of
children!" then fondly pass her arm about the waist of Miss. Juno--which
was not waspish in girth--or rest her hand upon Paul's shoulder with a
show of maternal affection peculiarly grateful to him. It was with
difficulty the half-dazed young fellow could keep apart from Miss. Juno.
If he found she had wandered into the next room, while he was engaged
for a moment, he followed at his earliest convenience, and when their
eyes met they smiled responsively without knowing why, and indeed not
caring in the least to know.

They were as ingenuous as two children in their liking for one another;
their trust in each other would have done credit to the Babes in the
Wood. What Paul realized, without any preliminary analysis of his mind
or heart, was that he wanted to be near her, very near her; and that he
was miserable when this was not the case. If she was out of his sight
for a moment the virtue seemed to have gone from him and he fell into
the pathetic melancholy which he enjoyed in the days when he wrote a
great deal of indifferent verse, and was burdened with the conviction
that his mission in life was to make rhymes without end.

In those days, he had acquired the habit of pitying himself. The
emotional middle-aged woman is apt to encourage the romantic young man
in pitying himself; it is a grewsome habit, and stands sturdily in the
way of all manly effort. Paul had outgrown it to a degree, but there is
nothing easier in life than a relapse--perhaps nothing so natural, yet
often so unexpected.

Too soon the friends who had driven Miss. Juno to Thespian Lodge and
passed on--being unacquainted with the Englishes--called to carry her
away with them. She was shortly--in a day or two in fact--to rejoin her
parents, and she did not hesitate to invite Paul to pay them a visit.
This he assured her he would do with pleasure, and secretly vowed that
nothing on earth should prevent him. They shook hands cordially at
parting, and were still smiling their baby smiles in each other's faces
when they did it. Paul leaned against the door-jamb, while the genial
Harry and his wife followed his new-found friend to the carriage, where
they were duly presented to its occupants--said occupants promising to
place Thespian Lodge upon their list. As the carriage whirled away,
Miss. Juno waved that exquisitely gloved hand from the window and Paul's
heart beat high; somehow he felt as if he had