he. In the gathering darkness she slipped her hand through his
arm.

"I wish I could marry you, Peter," she said.

He was fain to take what comfort he could from this expression of
good-will. If he was not the Prince Charming of her dreams, she would
have liked him to be. A little reflection on his part ought to have shown
him the absurdity of the Prince Charming having been there all the time,
and in ready-made clothes. And he, too, may have had dreams. We are not
concerned with them.

............................

If we listen to the still, small voice of realism, intense longing is
always followed by disappointment. Nothing should have happened that
summer, and Providence should not have come disguised as the postman. It
was a sultry day in early September-which is to say that it was
comparatively cool--a blue day, with occasional great drops of rain
spattering on the brick walk. And Honora was reclining on the hall sofa,
reading about Mr. Ibbetson and his duchess, when she perceived the
postman's grey uniform and smiling face on the far side of the screen
door. He greeted her cordially, and gave her a single letter for Aunt
Mary, and she carried it unsuspectingly upstairs.

"It's from Cousin Eleanor," Honora volunteered.

Aunt Mary laid down her sewing, smoothed the ruffles of her sacque,
adjusted her spectacles, opened the envelope, and began to read.
Presently the letter fell to her lap, and she wiped her glasses and
glanced at Honora, who was deep in her book once more. And in Honora's
brain, as she read, was ringing the refrain of the prisoner:

"Orleans, Beaugency!
Notre Dame de Clery!
Vendome! Vendome!
Quel chagrin, quel ennui
De compter toute la nuit
Les heures, les heures!".

The verse appealed to Honora strangely; just as it had appealed to
Ibbetson. Was she not, too, a prisoner. And how often, during the summer
days and nights, had she listened to the chimes of the Pilgrim Church
near by?

"One, two, three, four!
One, two, three, four!"

After Uncle Tom had watered his flowers that evening, Aunt Mary followed
him upstairs and locked the door of their room behind her. Silently she
put the letter in his hand. Here is one paragraph of it:

"I have never asked to take the child from you in the summer,
because she has always been in perfect health, and I know how lonely
y