ered her voice and divulged
a secret:

"He got a letter this mornin' sayin' that the Portland'spy' is goin' to
print three poems he sent 'em, and enclosin' three dollars to pay for
'em. I guess beginnin' right now he could go along at that rate and make
mebbe five or six hundred dollars a year. Poetry's nothin' to him; he
can write it faster than you and I can baste."

At the very moment of this adoring act of divulgence Aladdin was in
the parlor, giving his first taste of success a musical soul, and
waiting--waiting--waiting until it should be late enough in the day for
him to climb the hill to the St. Johns' and hand over the Big News to
Margaret. And as he sat before the piano, demipatient and wholly joyful,
his fingers twinkled the yellowed and black keys into fits of merriment,
or, after an abrupt pause, built heap upon heap of bass chords. Then
the mood would change and, to a whanging accompaniment, he would chant,
recitative fashion, the three poems which alone he had made.

The day waned, and it was time to go and tell Margaret. His way lay
past the railway-station, under the "Look out for the locomotive" sign,
across the track, and up the hill. In the air was the exhilarating
evening cool of June, and the fragrance of flowers, which in the north
country, to make up for the shorter tale of their days, bloom bigger
and smell sweeter than any other flowers in the world. Even in the dirty
paved square fronting the station was a smell of summer and flowers. You
could see people's faces lighten and sniff it, as they got out of the
hot, cindery coaches of the five-forty, which had just rolled in.

The St. Johns' fine pair of bays and their open carriage were drawn up
beside the station. The horses were entering a spirited, ground-pawing
protest against the vicinity of that alway inexplicable and snorting
monster on wheels. On the platform, evidently waiting for some one to
get off the train, stood St. John and Margaret. She looked much fresher
and sweeter than a rose, and Aladdin noted that she was wearing her hair
up for the first time. Her dress was a floaty white affair with a
blue ribbon round it, and her beautiful, gay young face flushed with
excitement and anticipation till it sparkled. There was a large crowd
getting off the train, at that aggravating rate of progression with
which people habitually leave a crowded public conveyance or a theater,
and Margaret and her father were looking through the windows o